


Facets

by konokomi



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Persona 2, Persona 4, Persona Series, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Gen, Other, Spoilers for everything, literally everything about all these series is spoiled in this fic read at your own risk, no really, the persona crossover no one asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-24 11:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2579510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/konokomi/pseuds/konokomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumors are coming true, and students are found hanging dead from electrical power lines—even for Hope's Peak Academy, this string of mysterious deaths is extremely out of the ordinary. Kyouko Kirigiri, already investigating the double homicide of Saeko Satomi and Natsuko Kuzuryuu, must put her life—as well as those of her classmates—and reputation on the line to navigate a dangerous landscape ruled by hearsay and unravel the web of mysteries surrounding the school. But what kind of serial killer strikes without a single trace?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Acta Est Fabula

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fanfiction is dedicated to ✱Dio Maryam.✱ He blew up my favorite characters like six times. Rest in peace, you denizen from the sixth layer of hell.

Pekoyama’s hand reflexively tightened around her shinai. “What… What are you saying? You’re saying that… No! No, it…”

“L-Let… Let me go…!” Ikusaba said through a clenched jaw, jerking a shoulder forward to try to rip her arm from the grip of the policeman struggling to put handcuffs on her. “Let go, let go! I didn’t… I didn’t do it… Junko-chan, Junko-chan, please—“

The commotion came to a dead halt as Enoshima dropped her head to her chest and laughed quietly. Darkly. Fujisaki’s eyes widened in terror, clutching his laptop closer to his chest as Enoshima’s laugh bubbled up until it filled the room, soaked into every cell, every molecule, every atom. For a split second, Ikusaba swore she saw her little sister’s eyes flash burning yellow, the same yellow she had seen in every shadow, in every nightmarish monster they’d had to face to get this far.

Enoshima’s manic laughter calmed down to a constant giggle as she quirked one side of her mouth up into a sinister smirk, showing off half-bared teeth in a sad facsimile of a smile. “Oh, you,” she started, spreading her arms wide as the other policeman inched toward her hesitantly, ready to take her into custody. “You don’t _know_ what you’ve _done_ , do you? Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. You think you won, don’t you? You found the big bad killer. Ta-da! It’s me!”

Ikusaba’s knees buckled. “J-Junko-chan… i-it…”

It barely lasted long enough for Ikusaba to see, but Enoshima turned and gave her a sincere, regret-laced smile. Perhaps the first she had ever seen on her sister’s face aimed at her. Not mocking, not about to berate her for being a failure yet again, and it terrified her. For once, she had no idea what Enoshima was up to, and she feared.

She _despaired_.

“It’s not, though,” Enoshima continued, as Ikusaba fell to the ground limply. “It’s not me! It’s not me, and it’s not Mukuro-neechan. But you don’t believe me, do you? What reason do you have to! I killed my parents, I killed them in cold blood in their sleep, because they got in my way. Because it brought me despair. You know that! I know you do, because I let you find out. I could have continued on for years, continued on with the plans I had to bring this rotten world to its knees, but I was interrupted. And because I thought it might be a little fun to introduce some new variables, I let you find evidence. I led you to the conclusion I wanted from you. And you fell for it.”

A hand on Komaeda’s arm pulled him out of his temporary stupor. “Komaeda… What’s going on? Did Enoshima… Did she do it?” Hinata asked, and Komaeda gave half a head-shake before stopping.

“I don’t know,” he said shortly, shrugging off Hinata’s hand and crossing his arms.

The policeman took another step forward, and before he could react Enoshima pulled a knife from behind her, shoved into her skirt underneath her shirt long before things had come to a head. She spun it in her hand as the policeman holding Ikusaba let her go, letting her arms fall lifelessly to her sides as she stared at her sister, mouth agape. She spun it again and the same policeman made a move to call for backup into his radio, and Enoshima’s smirk grew.

“It’s not me,” she repeated, “and it’s not Mukuro-neechan. But now, you’ll never find out who it _really_ is.” She flipped the knife in her hand, turned to Ikusaba and said, softly, “Don’t forget me, big sis.”

She plunged the knife into her stomach as Ikusaba screamed.

 


	2. Mens Rea

The atmosphere outside Jin Kirigiri’s office was buzzing with anticipation, with fear, with the gnawing realization that their perfect world at Hope’s Peak had been shattered in one fell swoop. Students walked down the hallway in packs, fearing for their lives. One false move and they might end up like those two girls, like the one found in the music room, or like the other girl, found dead in a classroom, heads bashed in and left to rot like common garbage. Murdered, a case never to be solved for lack of evidence and the school’s lack of willingness to report the deaths to the local police.

Inside, however, was entirely different. Though tense, it had a stale, familiar air to it, and Kyouko Kirigiri wrinkled her nose at it as she thumbed through some of the files on her father’s desk, pulling his chair up behind her and taking a seat. Natsuko Kuzuryuu and Saeko Satomi’s were, naturally, among those on the cluttered mahogany desk, but they were far from the only ones. In her cursory search, Kirigiri spotted the files of a few of her classmates (Junko Enoshima and Mukuro Ikusaba, strangely enough; as she was her father’s daughter, she was loathe to underestimate his own intelligence, but something about him investigating a _model_ and one of the most reserved people she’d ever met was laughable) and a couple from the class one year above her own.

“Pekoyama, Peko,” she read aloud, pushing Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu’s file off of it and picking it up in her gloved hands with a practiced grace. She flipped it open and found herself surprisingly unsurprised at the sheer lack of information on Pekoyama beyond her name and her talent. Though, unlike one of the other files she had gotten her hands on earlier that year (the Super High School Level Imposter, of all things), it wasn’t so much unknown as simply… missing. Omitted for one reason or another, and the curiosity simmered in the pit of her stomach.

The doorknob turned and the door opened to her weary, beaten father. She raised an eyebrow over the top of the file before closing it and reclining almost imperceptibly in the chair, file still in hand.

“Kyouko,” he said, as if her presence was unexpected. In some ways, it was. He’d called her to his office plenty of times before only for her to decidedly stand him up, and even though they’d recently reached a mutual understanding where she _would_ come, he’d hardly expected her to be coming of her own volition. “You let yourself in.”

“I did,” she replied, curt. “I wasn’t aware of it being a problem, and I assumed the school board meeting had run late.” Jin’s eyes glanced at the file in her hands, and she met it with a challenge. “You’ve been investigating the double homicide of Kuzuryuu-san and Satomi-san, I see. If my assumptions are correct, you had been planning to ask an audience with me anyway to ask—beg, more likely, me to take on the case for your peace of mind.”

She truly did have her mother’s brains. Thank God, Jin thought to himself as he raised a hand to rub at tired eyes. It had been over a week since the murders and between school board meetings and trying to keep the students in line, there hadn’t been much time to sleep. Maybe with his daughter on the case he could breathe—and sleep—a little easier.

It wasn’t as though he had a blatant disregard for Kirigiri’s safety; rather, he trusted no one else quite the same way he trusted her, especially with something this delicate. Normally, he’d have gone straight to the local police and been willing to cooperate at every turn, but with two murders on-campus, the school’s good name and reputation were at stake, and Jin would do _anything_ to keep them both in-tact. He had poured his heart and soul into this school during his years as headmaster, and he was not about to watch it all come crumbling down because of an incident such as this. Kirigiri was capable of both handling the case and keeping the discretion, and for that, he was thankful.

He looked at the file in her hands again. “I’m assuming you’ll be expecting full access to files and archives,” he said, stepping forward to straighten out the files Kirigiri had left strewn about. As she had found them.

She nodded, tapping her finger rhythmlessly on Pekoyama’s file. “All files, all archives, all official and unofficial databases. I need complete access to the inner workings of this school.”

“I can’t do that, Kyouko.”

Four words. Four words she had not been anticipating leaving her father’s lips. She set her mouth to a near-perfect line and furrowed her eyebrows. “In order to investigate, I will need full access to the entirety of Hope’s Peak’s databases and files, including personnel and whatever else you’re trying to _hide_ from me,” she replied, pointed and unwavering.

“I’m not trying to hide anything—”

“Interesting, then,” she said, raising her voice half a level as she cut him off, “that you’re so _adamant_ about keeping me out of them.”

Jin sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Kyouko.”

“I need full access, father.”

“ _Kyouko_ ,” he repeated, firm. “It’s for your own safety. I’m not— I’m not doing this to be restrictive, I’m doing it for your own good. You’re better off not knowing some things, and… the idea of what might happen to you if you _learn_ them isn’t one I want to entertain very long. Or, really, at all. Please, promise me you’ll keep your nose out of where it doesn’t belong, just this once.”

Were Kirigiri the type, she would have leaned both hands on his desk and laughed right in his face. Long, and hard, and with purpose. Being withheld information was always enough to put her in a sour mood, but she’d rather die before showing to Jin that he had managed to get to her, to pierce her carefully constructed inner walls. She wasn’t naïve enough to _truly_ believe her father was doing it out of the goodness of his heart and concern for her safety, but there wasn’t much to do aside from bite the bullet and accept that she would have to find some other way around him for the information.

Much to her dismay, Jin seemed to be far better at reading her than she had anticipated. She boiled it down to paternal instinct (something she felt like guffawing at, really) and put both hands on his desk as she stood. It was obvious in his eyes that he knew she was likely going to find someone to help her navigate under the radar as soon as she left his office, and, honestly, she was beyond trying to hide it. If ever he were to truly consider himself her father, now was no better time, because it was one thing to set restrictions; it was another thing entirely to expect them to be _followed_ , and any father of hers would know that had never been her strong point.

She wrinkled her nose, pushing herself up with both hands until her heels both hit the floor and crossing her arms over her chest. Bite the bullet, indeed, she said to herself as she closed her eyes and inhaled.

“Alright,” she said, “I’ll refrain from ‘sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.’”

Her tone pricked Jin’s heart with a dagger. Another reminder that his daughter still resented him for his choices in the past. “Thank you,” he replied, almost on reflex. He was sure she would find a way around him to access the database uncensored, find a way to tell himself to go fuck himself in some other form, but at least now she had a reason for him being ‘unusually’ defiant. As much as he would prefer her to have whatever she needed to investigate, he couldn’t put her in that position.

She was his only daughter. He hated to think of what might happen to her.

“My investigation will be impeded,” Kirigiri added coldly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, skirt swishing against her legs behind the desk. “I may not be able to solve this case without full access to the database. It could have been one of the teachers. One of the scientists. An outsider, even. I’m not certain yet, and it may prove to be _helpful_ to have this sort of information in my repertoire.”

“I can’t do that.”

‘ _Can’t, or won’t_ ,’ she wanted to say, but bit her tongue. “So, there’s no persuading you,” she mused. She shifted her weight back to her other foot. “...Fine. While you take your time gathering whatever _you’ve_ deemed necessary for me to lay eyes on, I will be taking _these_ files back to my dorm room.” In one smooth motion, she gathered Pekoyama’s, both Kuzuryuus’, and Satomi’s files in her arms.

Jin nodded. “Alright.”

He’d be damned if she was done. She walked over to a filing cabinet almost indignantly, rifling through the files before pulling one out. “And this one, as well. I’ll let you know if I find anything,” she threw over her shoulder as she brushed past her father out the door.

Kirigiri didn’t think of herself as an inherently cold person. It was easier to keep people at a distance, yes, and trusting other people was risky at best and completely fucking stupid at worst, but it wasn’t as though she had no heart. Her relationship with her father was… mostly shattered, but somewhere deep, deep down, deeper than what she’d be willing to admit, she still cared about him. If anything, that was more angering than the fact that he was purposely yanking her around and withholding information from her under the _ridiculous_ pretense of it being ‘for her safety.’

Once outside the office with the door closed, she took a moment to sigh in relief, pinching the bridge of her nose with her free hand, careful not to drop the files. The murders had put a strain on the entire school, and as much as it irritated her, she was not exempt from feeling the rising tension. Anxiety severely interfered with her ability to process and think, and what good was a detective with no perception? She stood up straight and headed down the hall, rounding a corner and running straight into another student, dropping the files on the floor and stumbling backwards before losing her footing and crashing to the floor.

She had half a mind to pull herself back to her feet and coldly chew whomever it was out for being oblivious to basic hallway etiquette, but before she could a pale hand extended in front of her.

“Apologies,” they said, and Kirigiri looked up to find white hair, gray eyes, and a worried expression.

Nagito Komaeda.

“I didn’t see you there, Kirigiri-san,” he said, insisting she take his hand by moving it closer to her until she reluctantly put her hand in his and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. “I really should pay more attention to where I’m going, shouldn’t I?” He looked at the mess of papers and manila folders at her feet. “Here, let me help you pick these up,” he offered, grabbing the nearest folder. His eyes widened slightly when he saw his own name on the file.

Kirigiri wasted no time in snatching it back from him. “Thank you,” she started, “but I’m fine.”

She didn’t dislike Komaeda; quite the opposite, in fact. He was intelligent but innately unwilling to show it, and a mess of contradictions. He was, quite plainly, interesting, and she found herself drawn to him as a puzzle long since unsolved, just waiting for her to crack open and finish. But sources—rumors, really—had implicated him in at _least_ being guilty of involving himself in business he rather ought not to involve himself in, and the hot one as of late was the murders. It’d be an insult to her profession and _herself_ if she dismissed it as hearsay and chose not to investigate him, as well. A large part of her intuition told her that, while he _was_ responsible for a myriad of unexplainable happenings and injuries to other students, this wasn’t something he would do (not something he was incapable of, though. People tended to become monsters they never thought possible under the right circumstances), but it wasn’t enough to clear him. A good detective _never_ relied on their gut feeling; rather, they used it to lead themselves to a conclusion with facts and evidence.

He retracted his hand before plastering on his usual smile, just this side of fake. “Aha, I suppose I shouldn’t have offered… It seems to be casework? I wouldn’t want to interfere with the Super High School Level Detective if she’s on a case.”

Smart boy. “Thank you,” she said again, this time more sincere. “...It’s quarter ‘til three, Komaeda-kun. What are you doing in this hallway?”

“Hm? Oh, yes,” he said, motioning with a hand matter-of-factly. “It’s Tuesday.”

“I’m aware. That doesn’t answer my question.”

Komaeda tapped a temple with his forefinger and grinned at her. “Haven’t you noticed, Kirigiri-san? Every Tuesday at three in the afternoon, an announcement comes over the intercom calling me to the headmaster’s office yet again. Likely for ‘behavioral problems,’ as usual. Though that part may change. I’m looking forward to it. In any case, I figured it might do me good to be a little… proactive today.”

Of all the things Kirigiri was, easily caught off-guard wasn’t one of them, but there was _something_ about Komaeda that always left her a little dumbfounded. To say he was _strange_ was offensively understating the reality of it all, watering down the true confusion she felt every time she found herself having a conversation with him. Between his unwillingness to express himself openly as a functional human being (big words for Kirigiri, what with her ingrained distrust of anyone with a pulse) and his affinity for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Komaeda could keep even the most educated guessing for a long time.

How aggravating.

He was well-known across campus as someone to avoid if one valued their life. Don’t go near him, don’t try to get close to him, don’t bother trying to be his friend unless you’re truly suicidal. The school board had only managed to get the bleachers fixed the week earlier, after all; no sense in messing them up again. Kirigiri never got the feeling that Komaeda truly _wanted_ to be left alone, though, no matter how much he professed that he was ‘fine with it’ and that it was ‘nothing, really.’ But trying to crack him open was about as successful as her father had been with _her_ thus far.

Not that any of this changed the fact that her files were still scattered on the floor, of course.

And perhaps it wouldn’t be _so_ bad…

“I’ll take that offer,” she said, glancing down at the mess of papers and photos.

“Change of heart?” Komaeda asked, but before Kirigiri could answer the intercom chimed on.

‘ _Nagito Komaeda, report to the headmaster’s office._ ’

He pulled out his phone and swiped his thumb across the screen to unlock it, raising his eyebrows slightly. “It’s 2:56. They’re early. Regardless… I’m sorry, Kirigiri-san, but if I don’t make it to the office as soon as possible I might be facing punishment.” He waved at her before sticking both hands in his coat pockets and walking down the hallway.

Her eyes followed him as he disappeared around the corner before she knelt down to gather her files again.

Interesting, indeed.

* * *

Touko Fukawa was a lot of things: a writer, a prodigy, and beyond fucked up from a past of trauma and neglect, but most of all, she was uncomfortable. Very, very uncomfortable. So uncomfortable, in fact, that she had an instinctual reaction to cringe and curl in on herself when presented with the opportunity to communicate socially with any number of people, and Sayaka Maizono was not helping in the least.

“Isn’t that right, Fukawa-san?” Maizono asked, addressing her as part of the conversation even though she’d been careful to be unassuming and pretend she didn’t exist. “I mean, you know how silly boys can be. It’s not just Naegi-kun and Kuwata-kun. I’m sure Togami-kun can be odd sometimes, too!”

She wanted to scratch Maizono’s eyes out, yell at her that Byakuya-sama was beyond perfect and her disgusting teenybopper voice was grating on her ears and she wanted nothing more than for her to _shut up_ and _go away_.

She didn’t.

“B-Byakuya-sama is different… He’s leagues above other boyssss,” she muttered, and Maizono giggled. Fuck her. “He’s so much more r-refined. N-No one else could ever measure up to him.”

Enoshima snorted and waved her hands in the air in front of her before leaning forward so her very… _ample_ bust rested on the desk. “I can’t _believe_ you’re hung up on a shitty lemon like Togami-kun. What’s he got, money? Power? Status? Too damn bad he’s a complete _asshole_. Honestly, what do you even see in him?”

Aoi Asahina furrowed her eyebrows and sat up from her position leaning on Sakura Oogami before stuffing another bite of donut into her mouth. “Aren’t you dating Matsuda, Enoshima-chan? He’s a jerk, too. Or at least he was when I ran into him in the hallway and he chewed me out…”

“It’s complicated,” Enoshima replied, twirling a pigtail. “We go way back, so it’s easier for me to handle him at his worst. Unlike Mukuro-neechan, I _know_ how to handle boys.” She wiggled a bit in her seat so her breasts jiggled ever so slightly. “I’d be willing to teach you, Fukawa-san.”

“N-No thanks,” Fukawa said with a grimace, crossing her arms tightly over her own chest.

One of Enoshima’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows raised and she leaned back in her seat. “What a buzzkill. Here I am, trying to be nice and share my wisdom with someone who, honestly, needs it, and you go and trample all over it. This is why I don’t help people!”

Ikusaba tapped her pencil on her desk and said, quietly, “I don’t think that’s the reason…” to which Enoshima’s response was a salty look. She withdrew into herself again and stared at the paper she was drawing aimless circles on.

This, exactly, was why Fukawa chose to exist in the shadows of society, hidden away from crowds and the judging looks of the public. Besides, why burden the world with her ugly visage when she could lock herself in her room like a proper hermit and spare everyone the displeasure? It had worked for her so far, and she wasn’t about to change. She was a nobody, always had been, and was content being just that. No need to upset the cosmic balance for a spotlight she didn’t want.

“Well, anyway, I was thinking about having a girls’ night sometime soon… Do you want to come, Fukawa-san?”

God _dammit_ , Maizono.

Fukawa’s lip curled.

* * *

“Alright,” Kuzuryuu said, pacing back and forth with his thumb between his teeth. “Okay, alright. Alright! There’s no need to freak out. There is no fuckin’ need to lose my head here. I did the right thing. She deserved it. I’ll be fine.” He stopped pacing for long enough to drag a hand down his face and sigh, inhaling deeply then exhaling it. He paced back and forth a few more times before coming to rest in front of Pekoyama. “Peko, how fucked am I?”

In reality? Incredibly fucked. Fucked beyond _fucking_ belief. But Pekoyama just shook her head and sat up straighter on Kuzuryuu’s bed. “I will do everything in my power to keep any of the repercussions from falling on you,” she said, tone unwavering.

He collapsed on the bed next to Pekoyama and dropped his head into his hands. “Yep,” he said, muffled by his palms, “I’m totally fucked.”

“I will do—”

“I _know_ , Peko. I know. You’ll do whatever it takes to get my stupid ass off the line. That doesn’t make me feel any better.” He lifted his face from his hands and let them fall between his legs, eyes trained on the carpet. “That doesn’t change the fact that I _killed_ Satou.”

Pekoyama lifted a hand and flexed her fingers before deciding against trying to reassure him. “She killed Natsuko-san,” she said. “She killed your sister. It’s… justified. Justifiable. I can—”

“I _know_!” he growled, dialing it back when he saw Pekoyama’s face twist up just a little with surprise. “...I’m sorry. I just— I know. I know she killed Natsuko, I know she _fucking_ deserved to die. I don’t feel bad about that part. I’m just worried they’ll find out.”

He sighed again, rubbing the back of his neck before turning away from Pekoyama to uselessly hide a blush.

“I’m more worried _you’ll_ try to do something and end up rotting in a cell like a common criminal.” ‘ _I can’t live without you_ ,’ he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t form themselves in his throat. Instead, he settled for, “I don’t want that.”

They had been together since they were children, never far from each other’s side at every waking moment, every hour of every day. Pekoyama had been more or less gifted to Kuzuryuu as a tool, a weapon, something to boss around and use at his leisure, but he’d never been very good at acting the part. His sister took to it like second nature, forcing her to act more like an indentured servant than the family member Kuzuryuu treated her as. Despite it, she remained loyal through all of it, and Kuzuryuu would be a fool to assume she would deviate now.

Saeko Satomi was a murderer, regardless of her intentions, and when Kuzuryuu had come back to Pekoyama’s dorm room shaken and covered in blood, she didn’t doubt him for a second. She didn’t doubt his motives, or his reasoning, only listened to him dutifully and assured him she would do as she had always done: take the blame, should it come to it. He wasn’t happy about hearing that, but she was stalwart and firm. She would shoulder his burden and take the fall for him.

That was her job.

That was the job of a tool.

Kuzuryuu leaned backward until his back hit the bed, throwing an arm over his eyes and groaning. “It’s been nine days and I haven’t seen any police. I doubt they just don’t give a shit. What if they’re onto something? I’ll be the first suspect. Yakuza’s little sister murdered, takes revenge on killer in brutal classroom attack. Life in prison. Fucking wonderful.”

She couldn’t stand to see him like this any longer. “Your family will protect you,” she said, turning to look down at him. “They can bribe the police. This will all just disappear—”

“I don’t want their help!” he snapped, moving his arm from over his eyes and furrowing his eyebrows up at Pekoyama. “I’ve _never_ wanted their help! This is _my_ problem, and it’s _my_ responsibility to fix. So unless God decides to crap out a miracle in my direction, I’m _done for_. End of story.” With a sigh, he relaxed his eyebrows and stared at a spot on the ceiling. “...I don’t like it, okay? I don’t. It sucks _ass_ and I _hate_ the idea of going to prison for this. But I— I have to accept that it’s probably gonna happen. Fuck, I really messed up.”

“Bocchan…” Her eyes were soft, her tone softer, and her heart broke a little at the sight of Kuzuryuu giving up, accepting fate. This was nothing like the hot-headed boy she was sworn to protect with every inch of her life. This was defeat personified.

And she couldn’t take it.

She stood up and straightened out her skirt before grabbing her sheathed shinai from where it was leaning against his bed. “Bocchan,” she repeated, setting her mouth into a line and her stare hard as steel. “I respect you care for my safety, but I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. So long as I have air in my lungs and blood pumping through me, I will work tirelessly and without complaint to make sure you _never_ suffer the repercussions. That is the role of a tool, and if going against your orders is what it takes to fulfill my role, that’s what I have to do.”

“Peko, you fucking _moron_ , don’t do this to yourself. Don’t be stupid. You’re not a tool, stop it. Just… Just stop. I— I _forbid_ you from involving yourself. That’s an order.”

Pekoyama shook her head and tightened her grip on her shinai, eyes trained on the floor. Disobeying orders was something she normally refused to do on all grounds, but in this situation, she felt it necessary. Some tool. “I’m sorry,” she said, regret evident in her voice, “but that is the one order I cannot follow. Goodnight, bocchan.”

* * *

The librarian raised her eyebrow at the student I.D. slammed onto the circulation desk in front of her. Not only did she not have the patience to deal with moody teenagers today, but a part of her wasn’t even sure this guy _went_ to Hope’s Peak. “Mondo… Oowada?” she read off the card, and he scowled. “Do you even attend school here? It’s over halfway through the semester and I haven’t seen you in here once.”

“I don’t like libraries,” he replied, scowling harder. “They make me nervous.”

“Nervous… Right. Any reason why you _are_ here, then?”

Oowada waited for her to scan his card as his sign-in before snatching it back hastily and shoving it into his pants pocket. “S’posed to meet up with a friend. Uh, Chihiro Fujisaki?” He held a hand up at about his mid-torso. “‘Bout this high, big eyes, sorta flippy hair, prob’ly had a computer with her?”

“Oh, Fujisaki? She’s in the third study room on the left in the west wing.”

“Fuck, _that_ far? Jesus, what’d’ya send her all the way over _there_ for?” he grumbled to himself as he trudged away from the desk. Going to the library on its own was tough, going of his own _volition_ was even _tougher_ , and now he had to walk _all the way across_ the library? Alone? With nerds of every shade giving him judgmental looks and whispering among themselves about the delinquent outsider disrupting their geeky sanctuary?

Even worse.

Alright, so maybe there were only three other people in the library, and no one was really paying him an ounce of attention, but he still hated it. Libraries gave him hives. Thankfully, his strides were long enough to get him to the room Fujisaki was in without too much time spent dawdling. He didn’t bother knocking before throwing the door open.

Fujisaki looked up from her computer. “Oh, Oowada-kun! I wasn’t sure you’d make it…”

He grinned and pulled a chair up next to her, sitting in it backwards. “Promise is a promise, kid. ‘Sides, who else out there is patient enough t’try ta help someone like me get their grades up. I appreciate it, Fujisaki.”

She smiled at him and blushed. “I-It’s nothing, really…! I don’t mind at all. Since I’m already ahead in all my classes, I thought it might be a good thing to do. Um… Where do you want to start?”

“Prob’ly math,” Oowada replied, scratching his head. He leaned over to look at her screen and felt his eyes cross at the complicated lines of code running from edge to edge. “Goddamn, what’re ya doin’ there?”

With the simple press of a couple keys, the coding popped off the screen as the skeleton of a virtual island was pulled up in its place. It was still rough, polygons everywhere and textures not quite lining up perfectly, but it was still impressive. “It’s a project I’m working with Matsuda-kun on,” she said, enthusiastic. She was cute when she got excited about programming. “I-I already made a version, but it was too rough to call a finished product. But, um, this one will be! Once I’m done, I’m going to reupload it and start running some tests.”

Oowada whistled. “That’s pretty amazing.”

She beamed.

“So, uh… what’s it do?”

“Oh, well… it’s… It’s sort of conceptualized as some sort of treatment? A safe, stress-free environment is created for maximum improvement potential of things like trauma, or even social anxiety! I even created a denizen for the island… S-She’s sort of like my daughter. That sounds silly, probably.”

“No way,” he said, putting a hand on her head and ruffling her hair. “Yer a proud mama to a, uh… beautiful cyber chick. Congrats.”

“Y-Yeah… mother…” Fujisaki twisted her hands in her lap, weaving her fingers together and apart in a cyclical motion as she swung her legs (not quite long enough to reach the floor, just yet). “Um… A-Anyway! Did you bring your math book?”

“...Huh? Oh, _shit_! Fuck, I knew I forgot somethin’!”

“It’s okay, Oowada-kun! I have mine! W-We can share it while I help you work through homework, okay? Now, uh… where to start…”

* * *

Twelve days had passed.

Nearly two weeks since the murders, and Kirigiri had absolutely _nothing_ to show for it except a few disorganized files and a distinct lack of sleep. She rubbed her eyes as she walked toward the stairs to the lower level of the school—the basement, really—and mentally blocked her schedule to prioritize which classes she could afford to skip and catch up on sleep after this investigation was over. One in the morning wasn’t a good time to be awake in the first place, but sneaking around the school while it was empty only made it more languorous. One in the morning also invited sleep-deprived considerations of violently swearing out her father to his face.

Actually _doing_ it was out of the question, but the thought made her a little less irritated with how things were playing out for her. Before Jin had ever asked for her to intervene in the investigation (head it, actually. No one _was_ investigating before he had asked her), she had been tapping in and out of looking into the murders, and even with nine days under her belt already she had fuck all more than what Jin had given her.

Needless to say, she was _mildly_ unhappy.

Her heels clicked against the floor as she walked, reading through Komaeda’s file and maneuvering through the darkened hallway with grace. The echo of her footsteps bounced off the walls, but it wasn’t enough to mask the closing of a door. She lifted her head up from the file and snapped it shut with one hand before turning on her heel and striding in the opposite direction to find whomever was out at this time of night.

It didn’t take too long to spot him.

“You,” she said, and the boy stopped. “What are you doing down here?”

“I, uh,” he replied intelligently as he stiffened up and turned around. “No reason, I guess.”

Kirigiri wasn’t convinced. “It’s past curfew.”

“ _You’re_ down here…”

‘ _I’m special_ ,’ almost slipped out, but Kirigiri crossed her arms with Komaeda’s file still in hand and cocked her hip to the side. “I have explicit permission to be down here at my leisure, granted by the headmaster himself,” she said flatly. “Beyond that, I’m also his daughter. As such, I know who does and does not belong in certain parts of the school building. Are you a student here?”

He stood up straighter. “Y-Yeah, I am. I’m a student here. Hajime Hinata.”

Not a name she recognized. “You’re too young to be part of the 76th class. I know the entirety of the 77th and I know for sure you aren’t part of the 78th. There’s only one other explanation.”

Hinata rubbed his upper arm with the opposite hand. “Okay, fine, I’m… a reserve course student. I just wanted to look around the main campus. It’s just— I’ve wanted to go here for a long time, and I’ve only ever been on the main campus twice in over a year. Once to meet with the headmaster and the other to…” He trailed off. “Never mind. You won’t… report me, right?”

‘Stern’ and ‘cold’ were two very different adjectives, and things might have been worse for Hinata if Kirigiri had been the other or both. “I won’t report you,” she said, “but know that, as a reserve course student, you’re not allowed on the main campus unless escorted by a faculty member or a main course student, and the latter only with express-written permission.”

“Thanks.”

“Now go back to your dorm,” she added with a small sigh, and Hinata nodded before hurrying out of the basement back to the lower levels of the dorm. Reserve course students were allowed dorm living space only with a roommate, and only for a hefty room and board fee. Normally she wouldn’t have mentioned it, only glossed over it and let him continue on doing whatever it is he was doing, but the less people interfering with her investigation, the better.

She tapped her foot on the floor until she heard the elevator to the basement close and start its ascension; then, she steeled herself and continued in the direction she’d seen Hinata leaving from. The first three doors were locked, but the second to last one in the hallway was unlocked, and the door handle gave easily under the weight of her hand. There wasn’t much inside but a small spot on the floor surrounded by textbooks and a sleeping bag. Hinata must have been taking advantage of the nighttime to sneak over and study on the main campus for motivation. Cute. She closed the door behind her and tried the next one down the hall, surprised to find it unlocked as well.

Inside was a large, complicated computer set-up. Rows and rows of monitors connected to all manner of controls, with one jumbo-sized screen in the middle of it all. There was a faint red light blinking on one of the control panels, labeled ‘inoperable.’ Whatever this thing was, it was out of order. Kirigiri pursed her lips and walked over to the other side of the panels to look at everything there was: there were switches for cameras, for ‘weather,’ for ‘environment,’ and plenty more. Curiosity burned in her like it hadn’t for months, an overwhelming need to _know_ and _discover_.

Something was up at Hope’s Peak Academy, and Kirigiri was determined to crack it wide open.

She was about to push a button when the jumbo screen in the middle suddenly blazed to life, hissing out quiet static. None of the other screens turned on, and the ‘inoperable’ light was still blinking. Odd. Slowly, carefully, she maneuvered to stand in front of it, leaning in and looking side to side behind it to see if something had gotten messed up and resulted in it turning on.

With one hand rubbing her chin, she reached her other hand out toward the screen, feeling oddly… compelled to do so. As soon as her fingertips made contact with the glass, something pulled her in.

“Wh-What the—” she said, tugging her arm. No use.

It tugged her in further.

“Help!” she screamed, trying harder and harder to pull herself out of the screen. “Someone, someone, please, I— H-Help!” With one massive, final pull, she managed to dislodge her arm from whatever had pulled her in and the screen went black but for a small, dim light in the middle of the screen.

She looked down at her hand, missing a glove, burns and charred skin and scars open to the world. Her heart beat like a jackhammer in her chest, threatening to break free from her ribcage, and her mind flashed back to the last time she’d felt like this, the last time she’d been near death and barely made it out alive, and her hands seared with the memory.

“Inhale,” she told herself, “exhale. This can be explained. This can be _explained_. You’re tired, you need sleep, you are running yourself ragged to solve an investigation. This has happened before. You’re fine.” She inhaled deeply and held it for a few seconds before closing her eyes and exhaling. “Be rational.”

The jumbo screen roared to life again, and Kirigiri looked up to find a set of soft, droopy pink eyes looking back at her.

“Hello,” the girl said, tilting her head to the side. “You… aren’t my father.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next part in two weeks!


	3. Credo Quia Absurdum Est

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll give it to you a couple days early so i don't forget in the midst of finals week

The girl on the screen blinked slowly before opening her mouth to speak and closing it again. At Kirigiri’s silence, she opened it again and said, “...My father is the only one who has ever visited me. But I haven’t seen him in over a month. Did he… send you here to check up on me?”

This was absurd. This was absolutely, completely, inarguably _insane_. Kirigiri held her hand to her chest, covered by her still-gloved hand, and stared down the girl on the screen. Her ‘father’...? Her creator, most likely. Had someone created her and discovered the connection between whatever world was inside and the real world, then abandoned the project? No, no. That was crazy.

Christ, she _was_ losing it.

But on the other hand, her still-pounding pulse was proof enough that this wasn’t all just in her head, wasn’t all just a figment of her overactive, sleep-deprived imagination. _Something_ had pulled her into the screen, _something_ had been strong enough to nearly tug her all the way in, and her missing glove was enough to tell her that it wasn’t about to give up had she not pulled herself out. Could that something have been this girl? It wasn’t too far of a stretch; after all, immediately after wrenching herself free, she had shown up. The innocence could have been an act.

A name. That was a good place to start. “What’s your name?” she asked, silently thankful that her voice wasn’t shaking.

“Oh,” was the response, before, “Chiaki Nanami.”

* * *

Ibuki Mioda liked to fashion herself as an eccentric free spirit, never quite fitting into society’s expectations and forging her own path through life. She was a visionary, always full of new ideas and new ways to do things. Even her music was off-kilter; so much so, in fact, that her old music group had more or less kicked her out over creative differences. But she wasn’t about to let that get her down any longer than it absolutely had to, and in no time at all, she was back to her old, bubbly self, too busy being the sole reason Hope’s Peak soundproofed every dorm room to care about a bunch of stuck-up, unimaginative girls.

She was known for four a.m. rock ballads when she couldn’t sleep, and once even sat outside the resident Imposter’s (she had dubbed him ‘Takuya-chan’ in the absence of an actual name) room and played a heavy metal-slash-screamo rendition of _Stairway to Heaven_ the week before finals at eleven o’clock at night. Naturally, no one was entirely pleased with this, and Takuya was embarrassed _as hell_ , but it was hard to _hate_ Mioda, regardless of what crockery she pulled.

That didn’t stop a constantly disgruntled Hiyoko Saionji from, at the very, very least, finding her _incredibly annoying_ at times.

Mioda was red in the face and slowly turning a garish shade of violet when Saionji set her lunch down on the table and took one of the empty seats. Koizumi set her own food down as well as her camera bag and took the other, slightly worried at Mioda’s rapidly changing color.

“Ibuki-chan, what are you… doing?” she asked. Mahiru Koizumi, ultimate momzoner.

“Kinda looks like she’s trying to shit herself,” Saionji said nonchalantly around a bite of sandwich.

After a meek little hand raise, Mikan Tsumiki cleared her throat and said, hesitantly, “A-Actually, Mioda-san has been holding her breath for almost five minutes… She, um, she wanted to prove she could, a-and I told her it was a bad idea! But she… she didn’t listen. Oh, ohohohoh, ohhhh, I hope she doesn’t get hurt…!”

Saionji started laughing and choked on her sandwich momentarily. “You’re the _worst_ nurse ever! She could have died but you just decided okay, whatever, she’s gonna do it anyway, it’s not worth it. This is why you’re a stupid bitch with no friends.”

A strangled noise from Mioda interrupted the conversation and she let go of the breath she’d been holding, gasping in air like sweet, sweet nectar. “Oh,” she said, wheezing, “my God. How did Ibuki do? What was her time? Lay it on me, Mikan-chan!”

Tsumiki looked at the timer on her phone. “F-Five minutes, fifteen seconds.”

“Personal best!” Mioda cried, throwing her arms in the air. She put a hand on her chest and inhaled deeply before exhaling and slamming both hands down on the table. “Now!” Tsumiki jumped a little in her seat. “Don’t listen to Hiyoko-chan, Mikan-chan! We’re all your friends. Hiyoko-chan is just a _liiiiiittle_ cranky because she hit…” Her voice dropped as she stage-whispered, “...puberty.”

Saionji turned beet red and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. One of her selling points as a dancer had always been her youthful looks, mistaken and interpreted to be far, far younger than she actually was. Most of her biggest fans were grown men, but she didn’t particularly care. It wasn’t until the end of the previous school year that she had started to finally grow into her age, shooting up almost eight inches over the summer and filling out in her bust.

She didn’t _like_ maturing. Not one bit. It was weird, and uncomfortable, and, frankly, really fucking gross. Everything hurt and her mood swings were even more erratic and violent than usual, to the point where she had been forced to _apologize_ for something coming out nastier than originally anticipated. It gave people the impression that she was nice or some boring shit like that, and, sure, while she wasn’t _as_ bitchy as when she had first started at Hope’s Peak—no doubt thanks to Koizumi’s influence—she wasn’t a _goddamn_ pushover, either. She was still Hiyoko Saionji, heiress to the Saionji clan, talented dancer, tough-as-nails, take-no-shit-leave-no-survivors through and through.

The one thing it was good for, in and of itself negligible, was that boys liked to buy her things. Coffee, a bagel, paying for her lunch, or even giving up a prime seat on the train for her to sit down. Sure, boys were gross, but she wasn’t about to complain and contest special treatment for being hit with the right end of the puberty stick.

“Kyaaaaaa! Hiyoko-chan is so cute when she blushes!”

She blushed a darker red. Mioda was _so embarrassing_ sometimes.

“She’s right, you know! It almost makes you look _innocent_ ,” Koizumi added with a laugh, and Saionji whined in the back of her throat. She didn’t need this. Not now, not ever. Though it wasn’t as bad when it was Koizumi.

Mioda threw up a peace sign. “Mahiru-chaaaaan, on point as always! Oh, oh, Peko-chan!”

Tsumiki turned around and waved toward Pekoyama. “U-Um, Pekoyama-san, do you want to eat lunch with us? It’s okay if you don’t…”

“Thank you for the offer,” Pekoyama said curtly, gripping her lunch tray tighter. “I will have to decline. I’ve already… made plans for lunch with someone else. A… a friend. We have some things to discuss.”

The four of them watched her walk away before Tsumiki opened and closed her mouth like a gaping fish for a second or so. “Uuuuuuu… P-Pekoyama-san… I j-just… I just wanted her to eat with us. She seems so alone all the time, a-and no one deserves to b-be alone! E-Everyone should have friends to e-eat lunch with. Like… like I have you!” She sniffled loudly and wiped at her runny nose with her arm. Saionji’s lip curled up in disgust.

One of Mioda’s hands lifted to pat Tsumiki on the shoulder before she decided instead to yank her into a tight hug, patting her on the back while letting Tsumiki bury her face in her shoulder. “We’re so happy to have you, Mikan-chan,” Mioda said softly, rubbing between Tsumiki’s shoulder blades. “Ibuki will always have your back, and so will everyone else.” When Tsumiki finally drew back, lip wibbling pathetically, Mioda held her face in both hands and gave her a very pronounced, very public, very _affectionate_ , kiss on the forehead.

Saionji could have puked.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Mioda squished Tsumiki’s cheeks up until her lips popped out comically, puffing up her own cheeks to match. “Now stooooooop crying! Everyone here loves you!”

Before Saionji could open her mouth, Koizumi slapped a hand over it. She licked it; Koizumi barely reacted. “She’s right, you know!” Koizumi said, and Saionji licked her hand again. Still no reaction. “We’ve been friends since last year. There’s no real use in changing that now. Even Hiyoko-chan likes you. She just won’t admit it.”

Saionji’s eyebrows furrowed and she nipped the inside of Koizumi’s ring finger with her canines, causing her to yelp and retract her hand. Victory. “Don’t let Mahiru-onee give you the wrong idea, dummy,” she said matter-of-factly, _hmph_ ing. “I only put up with you because Mioda-onee and Mahiru-onee like you.”

The last part didn’t seem to register to Tsumiki, eyes welling up with tears again. “Y-You all really like me, don’t you… I’m… I’m so happy! I’m so l-lucky to have such g-great friends!”

Never before in her life had Saionji wanted to scream more.

* * *

“Okay, um… ‘If I have 5.34 grams of potassium phosphate and excess magnesium acetate, how many grams of magnesium phosphate can be produced in a double-replacement reaction?’ ...Uh.” Ikusaba looked at Naegi expectantly. “H-Hold on, I got this. I _know_ I took notes on the, uh, dimensional analysis stuff.”

He flipped through his notes while Ikusaba tapped her pencil on her practice exam worksheet. “Isn’t the first step to set up the factor label?” she asked, and Naegi snapped.

“Er, right, yeah,” he replied, sheepish. “Forgot about that. But after that… I know I wrote it down!” More flipping. “Okay, I found it! Put the first mass there, then put the chemical unit, then on the next one, put one mole of potassium phosphate over 212 point two-seven grams potassium phosphate, then— uh, here, let me show you instead.” He grabbed her pencil and spun the paper around so it was right-side up from his view, scribbling a few lines and numbers out before turning it back around to show her. “Like this!”

 

“...Oh,” Ikusaba said, more confused than before. “Where are you getting these numbers…?”

“Well, the mole ratio is from the balanced equation, and—”

“Balanced equation?”

Naegi paused. “You didn’t balance the equation yet?”

“I was confused.” More like distracted by Naegi. “C-Could you… show me how to?”

He beamed, and Ikusaba’s heart skipped far more than just a single beat. “Sure! It’s actually not that hard once you get started. It’s easier if you make a chart for tallies of how many of each element or ion you have on each side of the equation, then make them match. First you have to write out the unbalanced equation, though. So, magnesium acetate reacts with potassium phosphate… in a double-replacement reaction… to form magnesium phosphate and potassium acetate. See?”

She nodded.

“Okay, cool. Now, just make a tally chart.”

She watched his pencil scratch across the page as he doodled out a tally chart, turning the paper so she could see after he finished. “Sometimes it can waste a little time, but it’s really easy to see what you have to fix when you can see what you have! I usually just start from the top and go down, but you can start balancing wherever you want. Magnesium looks easy to fix, so we’ll start there. There’s three on the product side, but only one on the reactant side, so just put a three in front of the magnesium acetate to balance out the magnesiums.”

“That brings the number of acetates on the reactant side to six,” Ikusaba replied. “Which means… there should be a six in front of the potassium acetate on the product side. That leaves a two in front of the  potassium phosphate to balance it.” She took out a pen and wrote in the coefficients, then took her pencil back and finished off the tallies.

“Exactly!”

Ikusaba’s cheeks turned a light shade of red as she ducked her head down and said, “Th-Thank you, Naegi-kun… You’re very smart.”

His eyes widened before he rubbed the back of his neck, laughing awkwardly and trying to fight off his own blush. “Well, I didn’t do _everything_ … You can thank Kirigiri-san for being the one to show _me_.”

“Oh my _God_ , what a _fuckin’_ touching scene this is.” Both of them turned to the door in unison to see Enoshima, hands on her impressively wide hips and heavily-glossed lips turned down in a deep frown. “Honestly, Mukuro, you gross me out sometimes.” She strode across the room and sat down on the desk next to Naegi, throwing an arm around his shoulders in such a way that left him susceptible to getting an eyeful of her cleavage no matter how hard he tried otherwise. “You too, Naegi-kun! But you get a free pass ‘cause you’re cute,” she said with a wink.

On cue, Ikusaba’s stomach fell to the floor and any folly from earlier left almost as soon as it had come. She shifted her gaze away from Enoshima, knowing full well her sister was acting this way to get to her. “...I’m sorry, Junko-chan.”

“Hmmm? You gotta stop the mumbling bullshit, Mukuro. Can’t understand you!” Enoshima said, dramatic and loud as she tugged Naegi closer and pressed her cheek to his. His expression went from worried to borderline terrified. “How can you expect to land a _hunk_ like Naegi-kun here if you can’t even _talk_ like a normal person! You’d be nowhere without me.”

“I’m sorry, Junko-chan.”

“Better!” She rubbed her cheek on Naegi’s. “Wouldn’t want Mukuro-chan to lose an opportunity like you, would we, Naegi-kun?”

Naegi swallowed thickly, eyes flitting over to Ikusaba, begging for help. “U-Um… No?”

Enoshima let him go and backed up, leaning back on the desk on her hands. “Look at that. A couple of unsure losers like you two belong together, surely. God knows I don’t want anything to do with it!”

“Ikusaba-san, uh, I’m gonna… go… See you later!” Naegi mumbled out as he quickly packed up his things and left the sisters alone in the classroom.

It was quiet for a moment, Enoshima’s eyebrow raised at her sister’s unusual silence. Her normal silence wouldn’t have raised any alarms, but this was something… new. She wondered if she could get her to go this silent again.

She pulled out a compact and flipped it open, checking to see if her makeup was still covering her _disgusting_ freckles. She hated them more than almost anything, hated the way she looked more like Mukuro than Mukuro did her. “I hope you’re not busy getting sidetracked with boys,” she said flatly into her mirror, pulling her cheek down to look at her eyeliner. “We have plans, you know.”

“I know.”

“Big plans,” Enoshima continued, snapping the compact shut and dropping it back into her cleavage. “Plans that don’t involve you getting fucking _twitterpated_ over Naegi-kun. Over anyone.” Her shoulders relaxed and her voice softened. “Mukuro… You’re my big sis. You know that. But I’m _so worried_ you’re going to be a disappointment as always. Don’t disappoint me this time. We can’t afford it.”

Ikusaba nodded solemnly. She was a disappointment, wasn’t she… Her sister’s words didn’t hold the same weight that they used to, back when they were younger, back before Fenrir. Back when it was still new. “I won’t disappoint,” she said, quiet. “I… I promise you this time. This time, I won’t.”

“Good. Because if this falls through, it’s not just _your_ ass on the line this time. Nyarlathotep won’t take a failure too lightly, and you _know_ we can’t get through this without her help. Maybe if the circumstances were different, but… they’re not. We need her, and she needs us. So _don’t fuck up_.”

Her sister’s seriousness was hardly overdramatic. When she had approached Ikusaba, still deep in the trenches with Fenrir, she had accepted without hesitation to be back by her sister’s side with no complaint. It had been easy, in the beginning. The plan was simple, and her role was one even _she_ couldn’t manage to fuck up too badly. But things had taken a sharp turn into territory she wanted nothing more than to never trod when she met Makoto Naegi. The only boy to ever smile at her. The only _person_ to ever smile at her, treat her like someone who was wanted, someone worth something, someone whose contribution was appreciated.

And she fell in love with him.

She fell in love with one of the pivotal cogs in the machine of her sister’s grand plan, like a proper disappointment.

Part of her wanted to call it off, to call off her involvement in any of this, for Naegi’s safety. She wanted to drop to her knees and beg, beg Enoshima to leave him out of it, to let him live, to let him _leave_ ; but, oh, how her sister would berate her for that. That was entirely out of the question, and all that was left was to sit in the shadows, in silence, keeping her mouth shut and her heart closed to the only boy who had ever managed to chip away at the walls.

But for whose safety, really? Naegi’s, or _her own_? The idea of someone like Naegi, warm and bright like bottled sunshine, well-liked by everyone he met, taking an interest in a hack-job construction project like her was… laughable, to say the least. It was better to have an empty heart impervious to severe damage than to be loved, after all. Pricks and slashes only hurt for a while, only hurt until you grew used to the pain and it dulled, but bullet wounds scarred over, angry-pink and ugly, screaming reminders of battle ‘til the end of time.

Enoshima’s hand on hers brought her back to reality, and she smiled at her, angelic and innocent. Cuter than a hundred puppies, everyone always said. There was a reason her sister was the model. “We’ll be okay as long as everything goes smoothly. I pinky promise, neechan.” She stuck out her pinky and Ikusaba gingerly linked hers with it.

“Are you… sure?”

She leaned in and lightly pressed her lips to the corner of Ikusaba’s mouth, dropping her sister’s pinky. “Absolutely.”

* * *

Kirigiri paced back and forth, chewing on the thumbnail of her ungloved hand as Nanami yawned on the screen and rubbed at her eyes. Someone made this girl. Someone made this girl, programmed her, and hid the entire project in the Hope’s Peak basement for some reason or another. And now, there was some sort of… portal? To another… dimension.

This was too much at once.

“Your father,” she said, stopping a few feet to the left of the screen. “You said your father is the only one who visits you. Your creator. What’s his name? Who is he? Does he know about the… the screens? Does he know about this?”

Nanami blinked. “I’m not programmed to reveal my father’s identity,” she said after a moment, “but… I’m not sure what you’re talking about… The screens?”

She chewed on her nail harder, having all but forgotten her hand was exposed to anyone that might have happened to drop by at any time. It wasn’t uncommon for students to break curfew, and while she figured that, yes, it was somewhat ridiculous for anyone to be sneaking around the basement after curfew, her run-in with Hinata was enough for her to be loathe to dismiss the idea completely.

None of this made a goddamn lick of sense to Kirigiri. She had personally handled some of the most bizarre cases in Japan, but this was something else entirely. A murder investigation turned into something she wasn’t sure she wanted to be a part of. Artificial intelligence, a mysterious computer program hidden away in the dark depths of the lower parts of the school, almost being sucked into a screen. Absolutely none of it seemed to connect on any level, yet, somehow, Kirigiri felt that it all connected together. It was more than just a double homicide— it was more than just _one case_.

“This might sound crazy,” Kirigiri started, mentally quipping that it was bound to sound far, far fucking beyond crazy, “but has anyone ever managed to enter your… world through the screen?”

It took a moment to process, but Nanami shook her head. “No. I didn’t know it was possible. I’ve been inoperable for months… I don’t think I’m even plugged in.”

“None of this explains anything,” Kirigiri mused to herself. Truly, it didn’t. She wasn’t sure how Nanami expected herself to be speaking to her without being plugged in, but she was far too busy focusing on the big picture to care. Inoperable for months, yet here she was, functioning normally.

She rubbed at her chin and pursed her lips. Logic didn’t seem to be present in any of this, really, and though Kirigiri was the last person to ever admit she couldn’t figure something out, this entire ordeal could prove to be a first for her. Common sense didn’t apply here, the laws of the way the world works thrown out the window in a flash, everything that had ever made sense, solid, concrete sense, gone.

Nothing added up.

But maybe it _didn’t have to_.

“Nanami-san,” Kirigiri said. “You’re _certain_ no one has ever entered the simulation through this screen before?”

“Yes.”

“Then I hate to be the first.”

With a deep breath, she steeled herself and solidified that, yes, she was doing this, and it was crazy, and she would probably end up dying trying to solve a case _yet again_ , but she had to. She _had to_. There was no other choice, no other option. She let one hand hover millimeters from the screen and took one last breath before holding it and leaning in.

The first thing she felt was the sense of falling.


	4. De Fumo In Flammam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i picked up a ton of shifts for the next couple weeks so here u go. i'm still ahead a couple chapters though so the schedule will still hold!

Her feet were on ground. Soft, pliable ground. Sand, most likely. But her mind, her inner organs were still floating about fifteen feet above her head and she felt close to dry-heaving whatever happened to be left in her stomach since dinner hours before. She kept her eyes closed, fists clenched at her sides as her innards churned over and over and over and over, twisting into knots.

The illusion was broken by Nanami.

“...You weren’t joking,” she said, and Kirigiri opened her eyes to find herself face-to-face with Nanami. She hooked both thumbs into the straps of her backpack and pulled them out ever so slightly. “Are you okay, um…”

“Kirigiri,” she replied. “Kyouko Kirigiri. And yes, I’m… I’m fine. I’ll be okay.” Sick to her stomach and confused beyond all belief, but okay.

“That’s good. Oh, this is yours.” She pulled something small and black out of her pocket, and Kirigiri recognized it as her other glove. “...I think. It matches your other one. I tried to brush off as much sand as possible.”

She took the glove from Nanami and thanked her, slipping her hand back into it and feeling an immediate sense of relief from having it back on her hand. Despite being inside a computer simulation and oddly fearful of her life, things were starting to resemble normalcy. “How does this work?” she asked, and Nanami tilted her head. “The simulation. Is this all there is?”

“You mean the island?” Nanami asked in return. Kirigiri nodded. “Well… there’s more to it than just _this_ , but yes, it’s just a collection of islands. At least, that’s what’s programmed… My father could program a different environment, if he were here. But I like it here.”

Kirigiri would be lying if she said she expected nothing more than a simple tropical island simulation, but at the very least, nothing seemed to be trying to kill her yet. That was typically a pretty good sign. For the time being, perhaps she could afford to investigate around with Nanami as something of a guide for her. She seemed nice enough, and decidedly _not_ like whatever it was that had almost taken her arm off barely half an hour beforehand. And though she was hesitant to trust Nanami from the onset, with little knowledge of neither her nor her elusive ‘father,’ there was something oddly comforting about her presence. Maybe it had something to do with her coding.

Or maybe she was just gay, she surmised, half-jokingly. That was always a possibility. She never really had found herself terribly interested in any of the boys she was in contact with on a daily basis, though Naegi’s company was never particularly unwanted, she supposed.

A soft snoring noise came from her right, and she glanced over to see Nanami, standing up but asleep. A narcoleptic computer program. How… unexpected. Kirigiri raised an eyebrow and put a hand on Nanami’s shoulder to rouse her from her sleep.

(It was cute, but there were snot bubbles.

Mildly disgusting.)

Nanami wiped a line of drool (she wasn’t even asleep that long!) from the corner of her mouth and blinked wearily before yawning. Kirigiri watched small tears well up in the corners of her eyes before she rubbed them away with her sleeve. “...I wasn’t asleep,” she said, unconvincing. “I didn’t miss anything, did I?”

“No,” Kirigiri said. “But I was wondering if you could, perhaps, take me on a tour of the island?” She didn’t want to say it outright, but there was a nagging feeling centralized somewhere near her gallbladder that told her there had to be a cosmic reason she felt drawn to something as insane as throwing herself into a screen for the sake of investigation. _Something_ had drawn her to put her hand on the screen, maybe the same _something_ that had then decided it wanted to pull her in. It was almost as though a _voice_ had told her to do it, had _called_ to her.

She swore she saw Nanami’s eyes unfocus for a brief moment before she nodded. “Sure,” she replied. “I don’t mind. Where do you want to start? The beach, the amusement park… the Titty Typhoon?”

If Kirigiri were a lesser woman, she would have promptly started giggling; however, this was no time for such tomfoolery. “The Titty Typhoon sounds… important,” she said, tapping her index finger on her bottom lip. A rather unfortunate name for some sort of establishment, surely, but it was worth checking out.

She had that feeling again.

Nanami nodded and started walking.

* * *

The dojo was always quiet around this time on a Saturday, and Pekoyama decided to use it to her advantage. She pulled her shinai off her back and inhaled deeply, holding it out in front of her parallel to the floor before laying it on the floor. She stood back up and inhaled again, seating herself behind it with her legs crossed, hands resting on her knees. It had been a long time since she had last found enough time to herself to sit down in silence and enjoy solitude. With everything that had been going on…

Her eyebrow twitched as she crinkled her nose.

None of that.

When she had first entered her servitude to the Kuzuryuu family, learning to control the need to be alert with the need to be calm and focused was rather tough. Sitting still for long enough to work on the latter proved to be more difficult than had been expected for someone of her position. Every little noise would send her flying into a tense fighting stance, eyes darting around the room to find the source. With time, she learned how to keep herself coiled and ready for whatever may come at the drop of a hat, yet relaxed and content. It was a delicate balance, one that had taken _years_ of dedication and practice, and when she heard the dojo door open, she was not alarmed.

When she heard the dojo door close, she was not alarmed.

When the usual sound of footsteps didn’t follow, she grabbed her shinai with one hand and stood up, spun around to grab it with the other, and swung in one smooth motion, landing the wooden blade right on the outside of Ikusaba’s blocking forearm.

It was completely expected for her hit to be blocked, though last time Ikusaba had chosen to use her thigh to take the blow rather than her arm, already coding this sparring match as different from the last one. How long _had_ it been? Over a month? With the stress of Natsuko’s murder and Kuzuryuu’s revenge on Satomi, she had been in more of a need for one than she’d realized, and here was Mukuro, expression guarded as usual. Her freckles seemed more pronounced today, and there were faint eye bags forming under her lavender-grey eyes.

Of course, coming out and asking if she was feeling okay was out of the question.

So instead, she shifted her foot a few degrees to the right and gripped her shinai tighter as she watched Ikusaba’s hips settle down further. A stronger center of gravity. The muscles in Ikusaba’s forearm tightened before she stepped back and brought both arms up, crossed at the wrist, to catch Pekoyama’s shinai just in time. One tap of the tip on the mats and she swung, aiming down at Ikusaba’s head, stopped by her block.

Pekoyama’s eyebrow raised slightly. She expected no less from the Super High School Level Soldier, after all.

Ikusaba matched her gaze.

Another strike; another block. An intricate dance of footwork and agility, shinai against bare skin, leaving screaming red marks on Ikusaba’s skin. She didn’t seem to care too much, twisting her body to evade and counter with a knife-hand to Pekoyama’s abdomen, swiftly knocked away by the shinai. Two fighters by trade, evenly matched, with shinai and bare hands.

The impromptu match continued for another twenty minutes before one of Ikusaba’s counters missed and Pekoyama rested the tip of her shinai against her chest, signalling her victory. She nodded, accepting defeat, before stepping back to bow, eyes trained downward rather than at Pekoyama. Complete trust and respect, as always. Of course, Ikusaba had won the last time, but there was still a sense of equality among them, respect and trust gone unspoken since the beginning. Pekomaya bowed in return and settled back down on the floor, legs crossed, as Ikusaba followed suit.

A beat passed.

“What do you know about the murders?” Pekoyama asked, and Ikusaba’s eyes widened infinitesimally before returning to their original size. She wasn’t the type to have her finger on the pulse of popular culture, not even around the school, but her sister was so entwined in the upper-class of the social scene that she was _bound_ to know _something_.

“Not much,” was the answer, as she tightened her grip on her knees. “You would probably be better off asking Junko-chan. She’s far more in-tune with what’s been going on than I could ever hope to be.”

It was about what Pekoyama had expected. She bit the inside of her bottom lip and tapped her fingers on her knee. “You haven’t… heard anything about suspects? The daughter of the head of the most prolific crime family in Japan was brutally murdered on school grounds. It seems to be a pretty high-profile case, but I haven’t seen any police around campus. Perhaps the school is carrying out their own investigation?”

Ikusaba stiffened. “Y… Yes, it’s possible,” she said, chewing on her bottom lip and staring at a spot on the mats. She never was a very good liar.  Actor, sure, but lying was something entirely different. “I…” she started, stopping herself. “There’s a _chance_ Kirigiri-san might be… on the case… But I’m not sure. She seems tired lately. Like something is weighing on her mind.”

Kirigiri, whose intuition and deduction were unmatched in the entire school. Quite possibly the one person capable of blowing through any of the precautions Pekoyama had taken and the misinformation she had let ‘slip’ to protect Kuzuryuu. She would need to be sure to keep a close eye on her as the investigation unfolded.

She was willing to take whatever actions necessary to keep Kirigiri from exposing Kuzuryuu as Satomi’s murderer.

Should it come to it, she would have her katana at the ready to dispose of Kirigiri. But, at the same time, Kirigiri hadn’t proven herself to be unreasonable before. Logic was her forte, common sense her bread and butter, and perhaps Pekoyama could reason with her; granted, the preferred course of action was to keep her from drawing the conclusions in the _first place_ , but she would be a failure of a bodyguard if she wasn’t capable of thinking on her feet with plan Bs and Cs, even Ds if necessary.

Plan A: keep Kirigiri from putting together the pieces and fingering Kuzuryuu as the murderer.

Plan B: put her six feet under.

It seemed solid enough.

Pekoyama lifted a hand to rub under her bottom lip with a finger. “So Kirigiri would be the person to ask for news about the case…”

“In theory,” Ikusaba countered, “but she’s unlikely to share anything with you. She takes her job very seriously.”

“As expected.”

Ikusaba started to say something before she paused. She took in a breath. “Pekoyama-senpai… You seem oddly interested in the murders. No one else has been asking about them specifically… There’s, um, a general consensus of sorts that justice should be served, but…” She trailed off, chewing on her thumbnail thoughtfully. “Do you… have some sort of vested interest in it? ...You’re not… _involved_ , are you?”

“No,” Pekoyama answered quickly. “I am only interested in bringing justice upon whomever murdered both those girls for the mental peace of a classmate. I’m just… curious as to how far Kirigiri has gotten in her investigation. I may be able to help.”

“Oh… Well, I don’t know if she would be willing to accept help. She’s… not the type.”

“I suppose you could say she and I are similar in that vein. In any case, my… classmate would likely feel better if there were more people working on the case than just Kirigiri. Two heads are better than one.”

“No, no, you have a point, but— I-I mean, I think it would be a good idea, but Kirigiri-san is—”

“Stubborn?”

“...You could say that. But…” Ikusaba sighed, slumping her shoulders and leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “She _does_ seem overwhelmed. I— I would help myself, but logic and deduction have never been my strong point. That was always Junko-chan… I’m just the muscle. That’s all I’ve ever been.”

Something they both had in common. Regarded as nothing more than a tool, a bodyguard, the brawn. It was unfitting of Pekoyama’s role as a tool to be _bothered_ by this, but something in Ikusaba’s tone struck her at the core. She had never really considered them to be equals in more ways than in the sparring ring before, always kept a sort of disconnect to Ikusaba as a person outside their occasional matches lest she find herself in a dangerous position. She was a tool, a _thing_ , a weapon— Kuzuryuu’s parents would find it less than ideal were she to make a friend.

Her relationship with Kuzuryuu himself was suspect enough as it was.

She sighed. “In the end, it’s up to Kirigiri whether or not she accepts my help, but I am going to take the initiative to at least _offer_ it. That’s the least I can do. Or the most, depending on her decision.”

“I guess so. Hey, Pekoyama-senpai… Could we… do this again, sometime?”

“Spar?”

She shook her head. “Talk. It’s… nice, talking to someone. To you. I don’t feel… pressured.”

Pekoyama’s eyes widened considerably. She… enjoyed spending time with her outside of sparring? No one had ever confessed to liking her that much before. It was hard enough socializing when she _had_ to, but Ikusaba had no real reason to but still _wanted_ to, despite both of their impaired social skills.

She found herself nodding sincerely before she could stop herself.

Maybe just _one_ friend wouldn’t be so bad.

* * *

Kirigiri pushed open the doors of the Titty Typhoon and looked around. It didn’t seem to be anything worthwhile, just some sort of club, maybe. The stage looked like it hadn’t been used in a long time (and if Nanami was the only resident of the simulation, that much made sense), the rest of it bathed in the neon glow of various signs boasting ‘happy hour’ and ‘ladies night.’ She raised an eyebrow at the aesthetic of it all as Nanami rocked back and forth on her heels.

“So,” she said, simply. “This is the Titty Typhoon.”

“It isn’t much,” Nanami replied. “I’m sure it would be more fun if there were more people on the island, but…”

But, indeed. Her father apparently never saw fit to code her some company, and as much as Nanami tried to be helpful and sociable, even Kirigiri, socially reserved as she was, could tell she didn’t have much experience talking to people of any kind. She wasn’t the type to hang around with large groups of friends herself, but she couldn’t imagine the crippling loneliness Nanami must have felt before their meeting.

It was sad.

Her intuition told her that the Titty Typhoon’s seemingly innocuous appearance was a front for something else, but there wasn’t anything she could see clearly to back that up. Perhaps the lack of sleep lately was finally getting to her, she surmised, as she rifled through the various bottles of alcohol and flavorings behind the bar counter. There were a few bottles of top-shelf vodka mixed in with cheap sake and cheaper whiskey, lazily placed on the shelves with no semblance of rhyme or reason. A small collection of clean, yet dusty glasses adorned the shelves under the bar, lined up neatly in stark contrast to the alcohol. Someone had clearly taken great care to set them up in a perfect line, while giving little to no effort for the alcohol and flavoring bottles. Unless Nanami had been thumbing through them same as Kirigiri was, that is.

“There doesn’t seem to be much to do here,” Kirigiri said from under the bar, standing up and dusting off her skirt. “It should be safe to leave.”

Nanami tugged on the straps of her backpack and tilted her head to the side as Kirigiri stepped out from behind the bar. “Okay,” she said, tugging on the straps further. “I think there are more things to do in the hotel lobby, unless you want to go somewhere else… Like, um… the amusement park? I like to ride the roller coaster sometimes if I’m not too sleepy.”

“Either of those sounds reasonable,” Kirigiri replied, heels tapping against the wooden floor of the empty club as she walked over to the doors with Nanami in tow. She put one hand on the door and pushed.

It didn’t budge.

She pushed again, harder, and it still refused to open.

“Nanami-san.”

“Yes?”

“Did you lock the door behind us?”

“...No…? It must have locked itself. It’s… never done that before.”

A predicament, but not one that couldn’t easily be worked around. “There’s a rear entrance, I’m sure. Do you know where it is?”

“Oh… Yes, I do. Follow me.”

As they walked, Kirigiri could swear the hallway was getting longer with every corner turn, opening up into another corridor, and Nanami’s footsteps slowed before picking up faster than before as they rounded another corner, then another, then another, then another, then another, down an endless stretch of hallways. A labyrinth neither of them had anticipated walking into. Logic doesn’t matter here, Kirigiri told herself. Logic has no weight. It’s perfectly fine that none of this makes any semblance of sense, and she would just need to accept that and work with it.

Something jumped into the corner of her vision and she spun on the ball of her foot to find… nothing.

Sleep deprivation. It _had to be_. Sleep deprivation, and stress, and the insanity of a world inside a computer program where she could _be inside it_ as if she were a part of it, where hallways turned into labyrinths and artificial intelligence could seem almost real. Where things showed up in shadows, maybe, or maybe just where she could finally lose her mind after years and years of bottling so much up and overworking herself.

A sound from behind her caught her attention again, only to find nothing behind her. Again. This was too much, she needed to get out of here, and back to Hope’s Peak, where things made sense and—

“Kirigiri-san, did you… did you just see something? I think I—” Nanami stopped. “...Never mind.”

Her shoulders tensed instinctively. “We should keep moving,” she said, “and find the exit.”

With a nod, Nanami started walking again, Kirigiri following closely behind. Everything about this was irrational, but Kirigiri couldn’t help trying to find something rational in it, something concrete to cling to. Intangible ideas and abstract thoughts were never her strong point; rather, she preferred to deal in the day-to-day reality and tangible, logical ideas. Computers didn’t _magically_ become portals, hallways didn’t _magically_ become stretching corridors with no end, monsters didn’t just _magically_ appear out of the shadows. Everything had an explanation.

Everything except everything about this night.

A quiet skittering noise stopped both of them in their tracks, neither of them willing to turn around for fear of their own minds playing tricks on them. Nanami turned and gave Kirigiri the most confusedly terrified expression she had ever seen. That’s right… Nanami probably didn’t know what _fear_ was.

“You don’t… hear that, do you?”

“No,” Kirigiri replied, a clear lie. “I don’t.”

“So, you… you also don’t hear it getting _louder_ , right?”

She could feel her palms sweating inside her gloves. A part of her wanted to keep walking, just face forward and walk, power-walk, jog, run, _sprint_ away from the noise, but a larger part— that _goddamn_ investigative nature— made her turn around slowly.

“It’s,” she said, licking her lips. “It’s… a hand.”

It moved closer.

“...With a face.”

Every fiber of her being told her to run, to pick her legs up and just _run like hell_ , but her shoes were cement and her legs were lead, supporting a three-ton body, and fear ran through her like an icy current, in her veins and stopping her heart dead in its tracks. The hand crept closer, faster, scampering toward her mercilessly.

It leapt into the air and snapped, flinging a stream of ice directly at her.

Nanami just barely pulled her to the side in time.

“Kirigiri-san,” she said, voice trembling. “I think… we should run.”

Before Kirigiri could respond, Nanami grabbed her by the hand and took off down the hallway, Mary-Janes slapping against the floor in a quick rhythm as Kirigiri’s heels followed suit in a less uniform manner before she brought herself out of being paralyzed. The hand picked up its own speed and fired off another ice spell, nearly missing them again right as they turned a corner. There was no exit in sight yet, but there _was_ a set of stairs, and Kirigiri steeled herself before sprinting faster to put herself in front of Nanami and tug her along.

“Kirigiri-san, we need to find the exit—”

“There’s two options,” Kirigiri said, heartbeat roaring in her ears and afraid to look back. “We go up these stairs to the next floor, or we head back _toward_ the… the _thing_ trying to _kill us_. As far as I know, I don’t have a suicide plan, so we are going to move _forward_.”

Nanami’s eyebrows turned up for a moment before she furrowed them, determined. “Okay,” she replied, changing her stride to match Kirigiri’s.

The stairs were just a few feet in front of them, the home stretch within reach, and both of them sprinted up the stairs, narrowly missing being frozen by one last ice spell before they landed on the next floor. Chests heaving and pulses racing, they looked around the second floor before relaxing. The hole where the stairs had led to the second floor had disappeared, leaving them nowhere to go but forward, onto the next set of stairs.

It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all they had.

Kirigiri took a moment to catch her breath. “If we can make it to the roof, we should be able to use the fire escape to climb down to safety,” she said, looking up at the ceiling. She laughed once, humorless. “Pipes. How convenient. We should arm ourselves in case any more of those… _things_ shows up. A creature of the shadows…?”

She rubbed at her chin. Was it a glitch in the coding, or something else entirely? Whatever it was, it seemed to materialize from the shadows of the corridors, and it was a logical conclusion to assume more were coming.

“Nanami-san, do you think you could reach that broken pipe if I hoist you up?”

“...I think so,” Nanami replied. “But it’s the only one I can pull off. Only one of us can use it as a weapon.”

“I have a solution to that,” Kirigiri said, “but it requires _having_ that pipe in the first place. Here, climb onto my shoulders, and I can use both of our body weights to pull the pipe down.”

The look on Nanami’s face clearly showed hesitation. “I… I’m not so sure about that. A basket lift with me pulling down on it was what I was expecting… What if I fall?”

“I won’t let you fall. But I need you to _trust me_.”

She knew it was hard trusting someone you just met. Trusting people had always been off-limits for her, even after weeks, months, _years_ of knowing them, walling up her heart even more as time went on. But their only hope of making it out of the Titty Typhoon— or, whatever it was now— was working together to stay safe and alive, even if that meant throwing herself out of her carefully constructed and reinforced comfort zone. She offered her hand to Nanami, insistent, and before long she took it and climbed onto Kirigiri’s shoulders.

For a small girl, Nanami was deceptively heavy. Kirigiri steadied herself on her feet and carefully shuffled directly under the broken pipe until Nanami had a grip on it.

“Okay,” she said, “I’ve got it.”

“Hold on.”

On the mental count of three, she spread her legs apart and dropped her weight _hard_ , and the pipe broke right at the point she’d been hoping for. She leaned forward to let Nanami put her feet back on the floor before taking the pipe and examining it. It seemed to have one weak spot near the middle; it would take some force, but with the right amount of pressure, she could probably get it to break again.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Nanami said as Kirigiri set the pipe down on the ground, putting one foot next to the weak point and bending over to grab the other end and pull it toward herself.

“That was only the first part,” Kirigiri said, voice strained as she bent the pipe little by little. “One pipe between the two of us won’t get us anywhere. If there are more of those… shadows out there, we need to be prepared. Do you know how to fight?”

“...No, not really.”

“Do you know how to swing a baseball bat?”

“Oh, yes. I can do that.”

“Good,” Kirigiri said, punctuating it with one final pull on the pipe as it broke in two. She handed one half to Nanami. “That’s enough.”

Nanami looked at the pipe thoughtfully. It looked so out of place with her, a small, chubby girl holding a weapon that could potentially kill someone if she used it right. Though, it’s not as though Kirigiri was any better, if only taller and thinner. She grabbed her own half of pipe off the ground and pressed her body to the wall, peeking around the corner carefully.

“There are four of them,” she said in hushed tones. “The hands. We might be able to run right through them to the next set of stairs, so long as we avoid the ice blasts. Are you ready?”

“No,” Nanami admitted, “but I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

That’s the spirit.

Kirigiri stepped out from behind the safety of the corner, out of obscurity and into visibility; all four hands turned to face her, dead expressions on their faces (masks?) as the color drained from Kirigiri’s face and she gripped her pipe tighter. The first of the four hands seemed to almost pause before it shot into the air and assumed a snapping position, and Kirigiri readied herself to move aside from the icy blast.

She was prepared for the chill of winter, concentrated in form.

She was prepared to dodge it and move in to attack.

She was not prepared for an onslaught of searing heat three inches from her face.

“F… Fire,” she said, blankly. “Not ice, but _fire_ …”

“We’re in this together, Kirigiri-san,” Nanami said, putting a hand on Kirigiri’s shoulder. “So, uh… on the count of three, I guess?”

“Yes. Yes, on the count of three. Dodge, and put whatever strength you have into your swings.”

“Okay. One…”

“Two.”

“Three.”

Both of them shot out in a run toward the hands, Nanami holding her pipe with both hands like a baseball bat and Kirigiri gripping her own tightly with one hand, using the other as a preemptive block. Neither of them were very fast, built for much different hobbies and activities, but determination aided them as Nanami lined up a swing and clocked one of the hands hard enough to send it flying into the wall with a sickening splat, falling onto the floor and disappearing.

Kirigiri glanced over as she evaded another burst of fire. So that was the trick, huh…

She ducked under one of the hands and thrust her pipe upward, jagged broken end piercing through whatever facsimile of skin it had and stopping it dead in its tracks. In less than three seconds, it had disappeared.

Two down; two to go.

She sidestepped another fiery assault and stabbed the third hand right in its face, shattering its mask and burying the pipe almost halfway into its body. It slowly faded away, but her victory was interrupted by the clang of dropped metal, and she turned to see Nanami without her pipe and her back against the wall. She gripped her own pipe tighter, twisting her hands, ready to jump into action— when Nanami took off her backpack, held both straps in one hand, then the other, closed her eyes, and swung.

The shadow smashed into the wall next to Nanami and she watched its mask crack down the middle as it faded away.

“K-Kirigiri-san?” Nanami said, rattled, still clutching her backpack. “I would really like to make it to the roof now.” She picked her pipe back up and slipped her backpack back on, holding onto the pipe for dear life.

It was time to move.

They fought their way through the second floor, through hordes of shadows, from hands that shot fire and ice to masked blobs more likely to slash at them, all the way to the stairs to the next floor, then the next, then the next, and the next, and finally, to a set of stairs leading to a gray, metal door. Nanami pushed the door open and they stumbled out into the blood-red light of a clouded sun, the roof refreshingly empty.

They’d made it.

They had made it to the roof.

“Let’s look for the fire escape before anything else shows up,” Kirigiri said.

“Fire escape?” she heard her own voice return. “You think you can escape? What a joke.”

What she saw when she turned around was her own face, eyes blazing yellow and a sickeningly out of character smirk on her face. Her eyes widened and her jaw fell open, hands trembling as she struggled to find something to say.

“What’s the matter?” her doppelganger said. “Cat got your tongue?”


	5. Rumores Volant

“I heard _another_ student had to go to the hospital. That’s the second one this month!”

“No way, really? What happened?!”

“A bookshelf fell on him, apparently. But get this: everyone’s saying that Komaeda guy had something to do with it. Weird stuff _always_ happens around him. I’m starting to think he does it on purpose.”

“Wait… you really think he could have pushed a bookshelf on someone? Why?”

“Who knows! He’s probably just some kinda psycho, I guess. Rumor has it he’s been hanging around the scene of both of the murders of those girls lately, too. Ugh, just thinking about him gives me the creeps.”

“Holy shit, that’s so creepy, ewww! Oh God, here he comes, shut up!”

Komaeda didn’t need to be a genius to know when other people were talking about him. Their body language and insistence on avoiding looking directly at him were always evidence enough of their distaste for him. Not that he could blame them, of course; after all, he did a fine job freaking them all out enough to the point where no one wanted to be seen within a five-foot radius of him.

There were exceptions, however.

Sonia Nevermind was tall, leggy, and blonde, and beautiful to boot, and Komaeda appreciated her aesthetically and, on some level, as a friend. She was one of very, very few people that consistently talked to him as though he were any other person, as though he weren’t the school pariah. He had asked her one day why she wasn’t afraid of him like everyone else, and she had answered honestly— she was _deathly_ afraid of him, but that didn’t stop him from being a person that didn’t deserve to go through school life completely alone. She had then set her lunch tray down on the table across from him and promptly ignored the hushed whispers of judgment rolling across the cafeteria.

What was she doing, eating lunch with the freak? Didn’t she know what she was in for? And the answer was, yes, she did. Komaeda made it _more_ than obvious. But Sonia had admitted to him near the end of their first year as classmates that, for some strange, strange reason, she felt oddly _bonded_ to him. “Like you were my own brother!” she had chirped, and Komaeda had felt his heart twist into knots. Not pleasantly, but not out of anxiety.

Just… knots.

The gaggle of girls scooted further down the table as Komaeda set his tray down, followed soon after by Sonia. She gave a sidelong glance at the girls before looking back at Komaeda, eyebrows furrowed. “Why do you allow them to talk about you like this, Komaeda-san? Doesn’t it bother you?”

“It’s something you grow to accept,” he replied, twirling his fork around in his cup of instant ramen. “I hardly even notice anymore.”

Sonia slammed her palm down on the table. “That is no way to go through life! You need to stand up to them and let them know that this sort of behavior is disrespectful and rude, and that you will tolerate it no longer! You don’t— _no one_ deserves to be treated like this, no matter whom they are or their life story, or anything in between. It’s— it’s basic human decency…!”

“Sonia-san, it really doesn’t bother me.”

“Nonsense! After a week of taking my advice, no one dared mock Tanaka-san ever again!”

“That’s because he gave a squirrel CPR and half the girls in the school swooned. He traded out one evil for a slightly lesser one.” Sure enough, one Gundam Tanaka was on the other side of the cafeteria, scarf pulled up to his eyeballs in a vain attempt to cover his blush as one of the third year girls cooed over his hamsters.

May his soul find refuge in the next life.

Komaeda’s quip didn’t please Sonia in the least, and she puffed her cheeks out as her eyebrows furrowed.  “Komaeda-san, you are an incredibly difficult person to work with.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Then I will just have to try even harder!” Sonia said, undeterred as she punched one fist into her other palm. She stood up and walked down the table to the group of girls and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Tadashi-san! My friend here has something he would like to tell you!”

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

The other Kirigiri’s smirk widened as Kirigiri stumbled backward. “Too scared to call for daddy? We both know that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Her mind reeled, every muscle in her body locking up all at once as she struggled for something to say, something to do, something other than just _stand there_ as this _thing_ wearing her face mocked her. After every shadowy creature they had beaten to get here, she had expected to be able to find the fire escape and leave with Nanami, head back to the _real world_ , where the only things that jumped out from the shadows to kill people were other people. Sick people, but _people_. Humans. Tangible, normal, everyday humans.

Not hellish creatures.

“Y— You,” Kirigiri started, hands balling into fists as her heartbeat smashed against her ribcage. “What… what are you?”

“Isn’t the answer to that pretty _obvious_?” it said, putting its hands on its hips and tilting its head to the side. Everything about it was _wrong_ , so wrong, a carbon copy gone down a path of briars and thorns. “And here I thought we were supposed to be the Super High School Level Detective, unmatched in deduction and intuition! You’re letting me down, Kyouko.”

 _No_.

This was— “Impossible,” Kirigiri said, for once at a loss of words. “This is— This is _insanity_ , I refuse to believe it.”

“Kirigiri-san…”

“After… After everything I have been through today, perhaps I should be more open to the idea of something this absurd,” Kirigiri continued, not hearing Nanami, “but at this point in time, I’m going to remain completely closed off to this. This is _not real_ , and you are not—”

“Kirigiri-san!” Nanami said again, and Kirigiri turned to look at her. Her eyes were wide as she stared at the false Kirigiri. “It… It has an arcana…?”

Kirigiri faltered. “Arcana… A _tarot_ arcana?”

“Yes, it… The other ones did too, now that I think about it. They were Magician… But this one is Justice…? I don’t know… how I know that, or what it means, but… Her arcana is Justice. Your arcana… is Justice.”

She had spent a good six months pretending to be a tarot reading prodigy for a case years back, another three beforehand learning the meanings of the tarot cards and how to read them well enough to pass. Justice arcana— upright signified fairness, truth, cause and effect, and law; reversed signified unfairness and dishonesty. In some ways, she figured it represented her rather well. But tarot reading wasn’t assigning a card to a person’s personality, it was a reading of their life events and current uplifts and downfalls. The Journey of the Fool.

Each card represented something different, depending on whether it was presented upright or reversed. A reversed Justice card in a tarot reading might signify dishonesty to one’s self, or an unwillingness to accept that a black-and-white view of the world isn’t always the best one, and one should accept things as is. In the same vein, while an upright Fool signified possibility and spontaneity, a reversed Fool could represent risk-taking and acting the part of ‘the fool,’ with little regard for the long-term consequences of your actions.

To think that, for some reason, something in this program— if it was even _that_ anymore— had been assigning arcana to _monsters_ , to people… It had to have some deeper meaning, had to indicate something else was going on here— but there was a time and a place for pondering this, and being faced with your own visage sporting a grossly _wrong_ expression wasn’t either of those.

Her double seemed to have the same idea. “I never thought I could be so _bored_ with myself,” it said, twirling the end of its braid absentmindedly. “I mean, who could have guessed _that_? All I ever do is hang out by myself because I can’t get over some shitty eight-year-old fear of mine that _everyone’s_ going to leave me, just like _daddy_ did.”

Kirigiri’s eyes widened as every hair on the back of her neck stood at attention. “Stop… Stop talking,” she said quietly, face pale and teeth gritted tightly.

“Why would I do that? Don’t you want your new friend here to know everything about you? Like how after daddy left, you cried? How when you got kidnapped, you cried for daddy when you thought no one was around? When Yui didn’t help you, how you cried for your daddy when your hands got burned? I think Nanami-san deserves to know all this, don’t you?”

“Kirigiri-san, don’t listen to her!”

Nanami’s words were lost on her. “Shut up!” Kirigiri snapped, picking her pipe back up and holding it with both hands. “None of that is true! It’s all a lie! I came to Hope’s Peak to tell my father how little he means to me, and I have done just that! He stopped being my father the day he left, and I have never once… _cried_ for him!”

“Ahahaha, who are you _kidding_?!” it laughed out, crazed and maniacal as it covered its face with a hand and peered at her through spread fingers. “Are you really trying to sell that _bullshit_ story about you hating your father still? You and I both know how fake that is! You don’t hate him, you never did! The day he left was the day you realized the very real possibility of people leaving you throughout your life, and you swore to never let someone in again!”

“That’s… That’s not true…”

“And you know _why_?”

The grin on its face grew as it dropped its hand from its face, and Kirigiri’s heart sank to the ground like a lead balloon. Nanami seemed so far away, telling her not to listen, to just ignore it, just forget about it and look for the fire escape so they can leave, but her feet were nailed to the roof. Against her will, anticipation grew, anticipation of what this thing would say next, what other lies (truths, truths, all true, all true, she hated it but they were all true) it would spout.

She licked her lips slowly, shutting her eyes tightly and hating herself for playing into its game.

“Why,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“Because…” it drawled, and Kirigiri wanted to scream at it to get on with it, just say it already. “You… are… scared! Isn’t that right, Kyouko? You pretend to be the cool, collected detective to _protect_ yourself from all your imagined fears! God, daddy leaving _really_ screwed you up, didn’t it?”

It was too much.

“You…” Kirigiri started, gripping the pipe tighter.

“Kirigiri-san, don’t!”

“You are…”

“Spit it out, Kyouko!”

“ _Kirigiri-san_! Please, please don’t, Kirigiri-san, ignore her, don’t listen to her, don’t—”

“You are _not me_!”

The last thing Kirigiri saw before a thick black aura filled the air was the wicked grin of her doppelganger, and laughter bubbled up from behind the cloud, stretching out and filling every pocket of existence around her, around the roof, around the island.

And Kyouko Kirigiri felt unbridled fear for the first time since the accident that cost her her hands.

“I am a shadow!” boomed the cloud. “Your true inner self!”

When the smoke— it wasn’t quite smoke, but she felt it choking her from the inside out, and figured it could be referred to as such— cleared, what was left in the place of her perfect doppelganger was a massive chained angel, hands bound together with thick cuffs and a heavy chain, pitch black wings wilting and pinned together with iron rods, piercing through them. On its face was an expressionless mask, without so much as holes for eyes, its body adorned with dented armor. Its flowing blonde hair seemed matted and missing its lustrous glow underneath the mask, and its overall visage was hidden, held back—

Just like Kirigiri herself.

Her stomach lurched as her shadow trained its masked gaze on her and its stare burned through the mask, through her skin, into her core. Though its hands were bound, wings pinned, and a large steel ball was cuffed to one of its legs, it felt no less threatening than before. Kirigiri’s heartbeat sped up, pounding in her ears, drowning out Nanami even as she shook her shoulders to pull her out of her stupor.

This was… her? This was what she was on the inside?

Nanami grabbed her arm and tried to tug her away as shadow Kirigiri laughed again, echoing and metallic behind Kirigiri’s own voice. “Not what you were expecting, was it? Not even Conan could have seen _that_ one coming. Man, that must be a serious blow to your ego.”

“I—”

“ _More_ stuttering? You really are nothing more than a grown-up version of the same little kid still hurt that her daddy didn’t love her enough to stay.”

“That’s— That’s not—”

“Kirigiri-san.”

Before Kirigiri could respond, something hard and fast hit her cheek with a smack, leaving behind a throbbing sting. She raised a hand to touch her cheek as Nanami frowned, holding her reddening palm.

“I’m sorry about that,” Nanami said, “but we need to run.”

“Run?” the shadow taunted, sparks of lightning forming at the ends of its fingertips. “Run _where_? There’s nowhere to go. You’re on a roof. It’s either fight, or die. Or both. That’s a likely outcome, considering you’re outmatched and outgunned. What’s it gonna be?”

“I’m just data,” Nanami continued, placing a hand on her chest. “I can be reset if something happens to me. But if you die in here…” She breathed in, slowly, and exhaled. “I… I need you to trust me. I need you to trust me, Kirigiri-san, I need you to trust that I can get you out of here.”

“Ooh, what a _sight_ this is. The ultimate test! Will the great detective pass or fail…”

“ _Please_. Please, just trust me…”

“Tick-tock, Kyouko!”

Nanami held her hand out, patient and waiting, but rushed. There was no time to spare. She needed to make a decision now. Did she trust the girl she just met with her life, or did she take her chances fighting against her shadow with little more than a broken pipe and barely a fraction of a chance of surviving it? She’d been a loner most of her life, loathe to trust people even after years and years of working with them, always wary of the intents of others. But Nanami was different. Nanami had no reason to be helping her, no obligation to. She had every right to have left Kirigiri to flounder in a world not her own, but she didn’t. She took it upon herself to help her with whatever she needed, even with the shadows.

Even with her _own_ shadow.

Nanami could have left her, stranded, left for dead, and she didn’t. She found it in herself to care about a stranger and risk her life— more than once, at that— for _her_ sake.

And maybe, Kirigiri owed her that much.

She put her hand in Nanami’s, and Nanami nodded before shoving her off the side of the roof, stepping in to take the blow of millions of watts of electricity, of _lightning_ , in her stead, as Kirigiri watched her shrink as she fell closer and closer to the ground.

Trust was a funny thing, she thought to herself as she closed her eyes and braced for impact.

* * *

“Hey, Fukawa-san!”

“No.” She didn’t even need to turn around to know that her answer to whatever they wanted was going to be a ‘no,’ unless they were Togami, and since she could recognize his voice anywhere and this person was _decidedly_ not him, the answer remained a ‘no.’

“Um, my sister’s coming to visit for the weekend, and I was wondering if you wanted to come say hi? Everyone else will be there.” No hesitation in continuing. Must be Naegi.

Fukawa grimaced and turned around, laptop clutched tightly to her chest. She’d been working in the library for hours on her next novel, and only after realizing the time decided it was probably best for her to head back to the dorm; Naegi, apparently, had another idea. It wasn’t as though she _disliked_ Naegi. Not at all, in fact. It was hard to dislike someone like Naegi. It was more so that she disliked _company_. Attention. Naegi was nice and treated her well but she wasn’t in the mood for him or for anyone.

She gnawed on her bottom lip. “Your… sister,” she said, slowly. “Wh-Why do you think I’d even _care_ about meeting your sister? Y-You’re not trying to… s-set me _up_ with her, are you?! What k-kind of… of desperate _whore_ do you th-think I am?!”

Naegi held his hands up in surrender, looking panicked. “N-No, that’s— That’s not it at all! It’s just— Komaru-chan is— She’s really friendly, and she’s been looking forward to meeting all of you, that’s all! And I figured, since everyone else is coming, I should ask you, too! You’re my friend, Fukawa-san, I’m not— I’m not trying to set you up with my _sister_. She just really admires you!”

How embarrassing for him to just _say that_ …! Fukawa’s face burned with shame, mixed with perhaps just a bit of pride at having someone actually _admire_ her. Most people avoided her through any means necessary, but Komaru wanted to _meet_ her? Really _meet her_? As a _person_ , not just a famous author? She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t the least bit giddy at the prospect of meeting her, but at the same time, people.

People were just…

“I… I’m not m-making any promises,” she hissed out through her teeth, “b-but… maybe.”

“Really? That’s great, Fukawa-san! I’ll tell her that!”

“W-Wait, I said—”

“Oh, shoot, I promised I’d meet Ikusaba-san to study together for our chemistry test. Thanks again! Komaru’s going to be really happy! Okay, bye!”

Fukawa watched Naegi shrink into the distance of the library before turning the corner. The door opened, closed, and she sighed. “I said maybe…” she grumbled to herself, gripping her computer tighter and training her eyes on the floor as she shuffled out of the library.

* * *

Her body ached.

“Hey… are you alright?”

The fluorescent lights glowing from the computer screen she had fallen out of basked the room in an eerie glow, illuminating a familiar pair of gray eyes, laced with a worry she hadn’t seen before. She blinked once, twice, three times, a fourth for good measure, and identified that she was, indeed, lying on the floor. The last thing she remembered was falling to her supposed death, yet here she was, alive and well and back in Hope’s Peak through some unknown means.

And Komaeda was standing over her.

“That was a pretty nasty fall you took from that screen,” he said, lips quirking upward slightly as he held out a hand for her to hold as he pulled her to her feet. “It was… a bizarre thing to see, honestly, but I’m glad you seem okay.”

She accepted the hand and he pulled her up, holding her hand until she steadied herself. “Yes, I—” she started, cutting herself off when she realized how shaken up she sounded. “I’m fine. Thank you, Komaeda-kun.”

Nasty fall barely began to cover it. She had fallen backward through the screen and landed on her back hard enough to stun her even more than her recent experience already had. The last thing she had seen before everything went black and she came back to the real world was Nanami getting struck by lightning. Nanami getting struck by lightning meant for _her_. She had taken the blow for her, and at what cost? Kirigiri put a hand to her head and fought off a wave of nausea.

This was all too much, too much for one night, too much for one person, too much for one _lifetime_. Her bubble of logical security, so carefully constructed after years and years of dealing with the tangible, with the things that go bump in the night that _always_ turn out to be just another person struggling with their own problems— it had popped so fast and so hard that she was sure she had gotten some form of mental whiplash from the drastic change. Suddenly, the unreal was very real, and what was real didn’t quite feel so anymore. Was she real? Was Komaeda real? Was _any_ of this real, or was it just some sort of cosmically cruel dream she was having that she would wake up from and laugh off as her overactive imagination? The questions swam in her mind like fang-toothed piranhas, latching onto every bit of reality, every bit of _sense_ the world used to make and tearing it away piece by piece, bit by bit, little by little until nothing was left but overwhelming insanity.

Her mind wandered back to Nanami.

“Nanami-san,” she said, more to herself than to Komaeda. “I need to— The screen. I might be able to—” She pushed past Komaeda and started fiddling with the control panel, trying to bring up the picture on the screen to see what had become of Nanami.

She was not greeted with anything relieving.

Her shadow held Nanami’s head in one of its hands, even as Nanami kicked and struggled to break free. With one last pointed cackle in the direction of the screen, hidden yellow eyes burning through Kirigiri, its hand clenched and Nanami diffused into particles of data before disappearing completely.

Kirigiri’s heart clenched in her chest.

From behind her, Komaeda put a hand on his chin and hummed. “So, there’s a parallel world inside the screen? Interesting… Ah, Kirigiri-san, I’m… sorry for your loss. Your friend seems to really care about you if she put her life on the line for you like that.”

“She isn’t my friend,” Kirigiri said quickly and quietly, “but I do owe her my life.” She balled her fists up and turned around, eyes hard and focused on Komaeda. “How much do you know?”

“Hmm?” Komaeda tilted his head to the side in a mock display of innocence, and Kirigiri simmered under her mask of collection. “At this point, I think it’s safe to say I know about as much as you, Kirigiri-san. I’ve never seen this machine before in my life, nor did I know anything about any possible parallel worlds inside of it. All I know is I was lucky enough to find you when I did.”

Again: how _aggravating_.

Kirigiri’s eyebrow twitched slightly. “Komaeda-kun,” she said, pointedly, “I don’t really have time to deal with this.”

He raised his hands in defense and waved them back and forth for a moment. “Alright, I concede. I’ll stop. But… I really _don’t_ know more than you do. In fact, _you_ might know more than I do at this point, since you were the one that just fell out of the screen.”

She opened her mouth with a retort before closing it. He had a point; it was unfair to grill him to the third degree when she herself wasn’t entirely sure of what was going on. Defeated, she sighed, and crossed her arms over her chest. “That was rash and inappropriate of me,” she said, “and I apologize. But it doesn’t change the fact that you and I are the only ones that know of this now, and yet, neither of us has any explanation.”

“I’m leaning toward ‘magic,’ myself.”

“Impossible,” Kirigiri said quickly, dismissing it with a quick wave of her hand before she recrossed her arms. “Magic is a thing of imagination. It doesn’t exist. There’s a logical explanation for all of this. I just need to find it.”

“Kirigiri-san,” Komaeda said with the beginnings of another grin. “As much as I’d prefer a ‘normal’ explanation for all of this as well, I don’t think we’re going to be getting one. After all, when you have a life like mine, you tend to accept the seemingly impossible much more easily than others, and my intuition tells me something supernatural is behind this.”

He was enjoying this, wasn’t he? “There’s a very long list of things I would rather do than accept the existence of the supernatural, Komaeda-kun.” Number one on that list was willingly attend a daddy/daughter dance with her father. She frowned.

“That sounds a little closed-minded to me. I would have assumed with your latest experience you’d be more open to the idea! Aha, not that I’m completely sure what to make of it, but, you know… It’s interesting, to say the least.”

‘Interesting,’ sure, and also deadly. She thought back to the shadows she and Nanami had faced and tapped her chin with her index finger. _Something_ was going on here, and though she preferred to keep her mind out of the territory of the unexplainable, she couldn’t deny that it was beyond her own understanding, vast as it was.

The best place to start was to gather what she _did_ know and share it with Komaeda, since it seemed he was now her unwitting partner in this ordeal— not that she trusted him (far from it), but because, above all else, she valued his intelligence, and though she wasn’t quite sure what his role was in all of this, it was better to keep him close than take the risk. Perhaps he would turn out to be somewhat useful, even if his reputation boasted the latter.

And, maybe, she could solve both cases while she was at it.

“There’s another world on the other side of the screen,” she started, right to the chase. “I know it sounds… _absurd_ , but… It’s true. I originally thought its only denizen was Nanami-san, but upon further investigation, it seems to have been run over by—”

“Monsters?” Komaeda supplied, tilting his head to the side. At the very least, he seemed to believe her. That was a good place to start. “I’m assuming there are more like the one I saw?”

She nodded. “Yes. That was— That was mine. My… shadow.”

Komaeda raised an eyebrow. “ _Your_ shadow?”

“I don’t have an explanation for it, but it—” She stopped, chest feeling heavy. She couldn’t tell him why she knew it was hers, the things it had said about her. Komaeda didn’t need to know, _couldn’t_ know, not in this lifetime or the next. “I just know.”

“Mmm…” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and tapping his fingers on his upper arm. “A world populated by monstrous personifications of all of humanity?”

“No.”

“No?”

“It was more than that,” Kirigiri replied, cocking her hips to one side. “There were more of them. Different creatures, but all shadows. That one was the only one that represented me. I can’t say if there are more of them like that for the rest of the world or not.”

“So,” Komaeda started, “the grand total of what we know collectively now is an _astonishing_ zero.”

In so many words. “You don’t start an investigation with all the facts,” Kirigiri replied simply. “It’s a process. I can— _We_ can figure it out. Together.”

“Together?” he parroted back, raising both eyebrows in genuine astonishment. “Kirigiri-san, don’t tell me you’re thinking of including me in the investigation. And here I had assumed you’d just want me to keep quiet about all of it! Never in my life could I have predicted an outcome like this. In which case, I’d be delighted to help you. If you’ll have me, of course.”

Kirigiri held out a hand. “I was the one that offered,” she said coolly. “That implies I will have you.”

“Then I’m looking forward to working with you,” Komaeda said, putting his hand in hers, “partner.”

**_Thou shalt have our blessing when thou choosest to create a Persona of the Moon Arcana…_ **

**_> You have established a new social link!_ **


	6. Aut Neca Aut Necare

Kiyotaka Ishimaru had a very, very strict morning ritual and he was not about to let a double homicide interrupt his rigid and unchanging lifestyle. Wake up at seven, take exactly ten minutes (no more, no less) to shower, get dressed, brush teeth, head down the hallway to spend between fifteen and twenty (the one thing he could be swayed to give an _approximate_ time limit on) minutes knocking on Oowada’s door before it was finally answered, then another ten spent arguing with him over whether or not it was worth it to get out of bed and go to class (the answer was, of course, always a yes, and he refused to take no for an answer). After Oowada was (reluctantly) showered and dressed, they would then meet up with Fujisaki outside the cafeteria to walk in together for breakfast.

He checked his watch as he marched down the hallway, stopping in front of Oowada’s door and knocking three times, one, two, three, then standing rapt at attention for a good five minutes before knocking again. Five minutes later, the door was still shut, and his schedule was in dire risk of being upturned. Sunday or not, Oowada needed to wake up. They had plans.

With a huff, he jiggled the door handle.

It was unlocked.

“Though I respect your privacy,” he stated clearly, tightening his grip on the handle, “I am invoking my right as both your friend and as a disciplinary committee member to admit myself into your room without prior invitation, as the door is unlocked.” Clear, with purpose, and detailed enough that there were no loopholes. Not a single rule broken. After a respectful waiting period of thirty seconds for one last chance for Oowada to open the door, he pushed the handle down and opened the door.

Much to his surprise, Oowada was _not_ simply ignoring him and was instead asleep on his bed, sprawled out with his math textbook on his face.

Much to his _chagrin_ , it appeared as though Fujisaki had spent the night, curled up on Oowada’s chest.

He cleared his throat. “ _Oowada-kun_!”

Oowada bolted upright, textbook falling off his face to rest in his lap as he yelled, “Jesus fuck!” and Fujisaki went tumbling off the bed with a squeak, landing on her stomach on the floor. He leaned over the side of the bed to make sure she was okay before sitting back up and squinting at Ishimaru through the glare of the overhead light he so rudely switched on when he had walked in. “The hell, dude?”

“We’re late!” Ishimaru replied, hands on his hips.

“It’s _Sunday_ ,” was Oowada’s retort, rubbing at the inner corner of his eye with a finger. “Me ‘n’ Fujisaki were up ‘til like four doin’ algebra. Turns out I’m pretty good at it when I give a shit, but dammit, Ishimaru. I’m tired. Can’t ya let me sleep in for _once_?”

Fujisaki stood back up and brushed herself off. “Um,” she started, fiddling with the hem of her skirt, “i-it’s my fault, really! Oowada-kun just needed some help with math, and he was doing _really_ well! S-So I didn’t think anything of it when he wanted to stay up a little later t-to keep going, a-and I guess we just fell asleep... Th-That’s all that happened!”

With a deep, heavy sigh, Ishimaru removed his hands from his hips and crossed them over his chest, closing his eyes and furrowing his eyebrows. As was always the case when it came to dealing with Oowada, he felt almost compelled to ignore rules and regulations because, for some reason, he found himself a kindred spirit in Oowada the likes of which he’d never found before. It was easy enough— an ignored missing hall pass here, a waived detention there— but a deeper part of him wanted to reprimand him _constantly_ for his irresponsible actions, and wanted to _throttle_ Ishimaru himself for allowing himself to be so weak.

That was the key.

“Boys and girls are not to be in each others’ rooms at night,” Ishimaru said simply.

“Dude, gimme a break just o—”

“No!” he snapped. “No breaks! Not this time, not the next, no more! First I let you off with no repercussions, then it happens again and I do it again out of a sense of obligation due to you being my friend, then I don’t _bother_ with it anymore for _anyone_ and everything I stand for gets flushed down the toilet! _Do you understand this_?!”

Oowada’s face was priceless, and Ishimaru sighed again.

Perhaps he _was_ taking this all a little too seriously, but it was all he knew at the end of the day, and without it he felt like little more than a failure masquerading as an upholder of the peace. With two murders already, he couldn’t afford to let anything else out of his grip, no matter the circumstances, and that meant things to do with Oowada and Fujisaki as well.

But there was a point where he had to concede just a _bit_.

“I… believe you,” he said after a moment, and Oowada’s eyebrows finally lowered as Fujisaki shifted awkwardly next to the bed, staring at a string on her shirt with fervor. “I believe that nothing… happened… between the two of you. But— But it’s still a _rule_ , and you can’t just— _break_ them as you see fit.”

Fujisaki pulled at the string and cleared her throat, looking up just enough to make it seem like she was making an attempt at looking Ishimaru in the face. “I-I’m sorry, Ishimaru-kun. It’s… It’s my fault, again! O-Oowada-kun was doing so well that I-I didn’t want to i-interrupt him! S-So you can blame _me_ , and write me up for it instead! It won’t happen again, I promise… W-We’ll go to the library next time, right, Oowada-kun?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Oowada replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck and looking at a spot just over Ishimaru’s shoulder before flashing a thumbs-up at Ishimaru and grinning. “Won’t happen again, kyoudai. Scout’s honor.”

“I _highly_ doubt you were ever a scout of any kind, Oowada-kun.”

“It’s just a figure of speech!”

* * *

Being in class with the friends of a murderer was a surreal experience.

She had no proof, of course, aside from the nagging feeling in her gut and previously acquired knowledge that Satomi and Koizumi had been friends since their first year, and, as such, had no real right to confront anyone about it, least of all _take care_ of anything, but it didn’t stop her from erecting her walls tenfold whenever the need arose. The need being social interaction; in this case, Mioda.

“Peko-chan, do you wanna come with us to go see the new movie playing in the local theater this weekend? It’ll be fun! Plus we can all get away from campus for a little while ‘cause it’s getting really heavy around here,” Mioda chirped, leaning on the edge of Pekoyama’s desk and bouncing on her toes.

“No, thank you,” she replied, swiftly easing her way out of her chair and grabbing her books off the desk. “I’m busy this weekend.”

Mioda whined. “You’re always busy! Can’t you just take some time off for once? Come on, it’ll be lots of fun! You always seem so lonely, so just come hang out with Ibuki and Mahiru-chan and Hiyoko-chan and Mikan-chan! You can invite Fuyuhiko-chan, too! You seem like you’re pretty good friends.”

Pekoyama wasn’t entirely sure how to phrase, ‘it sounds like fun, but considering you were instrumental in the death of the younger sister of the boy I would give my life for and consider my closest companion and the only family I truly have, I’m going to have to pass.’ It’s possible she could have phrased it just like that, of course, but figured that would prove to be all but detrimental to her personal investigation and hunt for the truth. Investigation was best left to those with the talent for it, like Kirigiri, but in this case she couldn’t allow Kirigiri to reach conclusions before she had the time to cover them up and sweep it all under the rug for Kuzuryuu’s sake.

Her job had never been an easy one to manage, but with no alternative and no experience living any other life, she had come to accept it as her alpha and omega, the only life she would ever lead in this godforsaken world, torn asunder with the revelation that there were those unfazed by the power of the Kuzuryuu family, willing to murder the child of the _head_ of the family in cold blood.

Her grip on her books tightened, the familiar weight of her shinai on her back hardly a relief.

On one hand, she could do her duty in breaking connections and rerouting trails to lead to her instead of Kuzuryuu, then bring the facts to Kirigiri; but, on the other, doing so would more than likely send up red flags for Kirigiri, and Pekoyama had little to no faith in her ability to circumvent the truth fully and completely. It wasn’t a risk she was willing to take. In the meantime, it couldn’t hurt to keep tabs on her investigation and maneuver her away from leads for however long it took her to fix what Kuzuryuu had broken.

“Maybe some other time,” was what she finally gave Mioda as her excuse, adding on, “I have a prior arrangement with Komaeda and one of the students from the first-year class.” It was hardly a lie, either; rumors were spreading quickly about Komaeda and Kirigiri’s sudden ‘closeness,’ to the point that it was assumed they were quite possibly dating.

Pekoyama didn’t care much for the rumors of their possible romantic involvement so much as that the most deceptively intelligent— deceptively, of course, because he would rather pretend to be inept than prove his worth at anything, and though Pekoyama was nowhere near an expert on human behavior, even _she_ could tell he was faking it— student in the entire school was now spending time with the Super High School Level Detective, which could mean only one thing: she had to move.

She gave Mioda a curt nod and hustled out of the classroom, passing by Kuzuryuu without a word, even as he called after her. He could wait until his safety was ensured, she thought to herself as she rounded a corner and smashed right into Komaeda, books crashing to the floor in front of her.

“You’re in quite a hurry, Pekoyama-san,” he said with his usual vapid grin. “My apologies, though. I suppose I should have picked a better spot to wait for Kirigiri-san than the middle of the hallway. Though, in my defense, she was due up here ten minutes ago.”

“Perhaps that would be the wisest course of action next time, yes,” she replied coolly, bending down to swipe her books back up. She stood back up and cleared her throat. “As unfortunate as our… meeting was, you are the one I was looking for in the first place.”

“Oh? What business could you possibly need _me_ for? There’s bound to be someone more reliable.”

...She really hadn’t thought this through. “I… I need assistance. With the upcoming English test.” That was a good enough excuse, surely.

Not for him, it seemed. He raised a suspicious eyebrow and put a hand on his hip, using the other to tap his temple idly. “You’re asking someone like me for academic help? Really, Pekoyama-san, surely there’s _someone_ more suited to the task than I—”

“You have the highest marks in the year,” she said quickly, cutting him off mid-sentence as his finger stopped tapping and he moved both arms to cross over his chest, hip cocked just slightly to the side. “Rumor has it you are a native speaker, as well. My decision in reaching out to you for assistance was not one founded in foolishness.”

After a beat, he sighed. “I can’t argue with that, I suppose. But, ah… could it wait until another time? You see, I had plans with Kirigiri-san, and—”

“My sincerest apologies for the tardiness,” Kirigiri said as she walked up, nose buried in the manila folder in her hand. “My father needed to speak to me in his office regarding certain aspects of the case and ended up keeping me longer than intended, despite the adamancy put forth in explaining I had plans.” She looked up from the folder and right at Pekoyama. “Do you need something?”

Komaeda laughed once. “Ears burning, Kirigiri-san? This is Peko Pekoyama-san, a second-year in my class. She was asking for help on an upcoming exam, but I told her that though I’d be delighted, this afternoon doesn’t work out very well.”

“I had nearly forgotten about exams myself,” Kirigiri replied, “but Komaeda-kun would be correct in saying today is bad timing. Apologies.”

Kirigiri’s words were tinged with curtness, and Pekoyama kept her face neutral. Komaeda’s involvement in this case meant she was either desperate for help, or they had already found something and were working to hash out details; though she’d been hoping to clear everything up _before_ this could happen, damage control was the second best option. “Maybe I could assist you, then,” she offered, shifting her weight ever so slightly off-center. “Three of us working together on what I assume to be the double homicide case would certainly make it go by faster.”

“The homicides? Oh, no,” Komaeda said, waving a hand dismissively. “Kirigiri-san is working that case on her own. She and I just have unrelated plans that would be a _hassle_ to reschedule, that’s all. And it would be quite rude for me to flake out on her when I was the one that made the plans!”

His smile was forced, fake, and Kirigiri raised an eyebrow at Pekoyama. She remained entirely unconvinced about the true reasons behind their sudden fraternization, but it seemed she would have to pick her battles for the time being. “Very well,” she conceded, bowing her head just slightly. “Some other time then, Komaeda.”

“It’d be my pleasure,” he said, wiggling his fingers at her in a ‘goodbye’ as Kirigiri walked ahead of him down the hallway without missing a beat. “I’m sure we’ll run into each other again soon.”

Her eyes followed them as they walked down the hallway, Kirigiri’s strides never wavering even as she trained her focus on the file, Komaeda elongating his own strides to catch up to her, hands in his pockets.

She gripped her books tighter and set her jaw.

The situation had reached critical.

* * *

Kirigiri turned another page in the file in her hands as the fifteenth minute without conversation between the two of them passed, and Komaeda stirred his straw around in his soda. It had only been a few days since he had found her on the floor after having fallen out of a _monitor_ , but already he felt a lull in the investigation. That was hardly the only thing on his mind, though, and he twirled his straw a few more times before pushing the cup away (and nearly knocking it over) and leaning back in his food court chair.

“Kirigiri-san,” he said, arms crossed over his chest, “you _did_ —”

“I did,” she replied quickly, cutting him off mid-sentence. “I’m good at my job, Komaeda-kun.”

“Of course you are,” he said, waving a hand before re-crossing his arms. “But even Japan’s most prolific teen detective is capable of making a mistake, absurd as it sounds. I take it, then, that you—”

“I do.” Quick, again. “I believe Pekoyama-san has something to do with the double homicide of Saeko Satomi and Natsuko Kuzuryuu, yes. Though what, exactly, her role in both of them is can’t be determined at this point. I have a feeling that isn’t what you intended to make conversation about.”

She looked up from the file and snapped it shut with her hand, setting it down on the plastic table as Komaeda’s lips quirked upward into a bemused smirk of their own volition. She really was the best of the best.

He raised both hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. You got me. I’m far more interested in investigating beyond that monitor, if we’re being truthful here. The murders are gruesome, of course, and I understand you’re indebted to your father as his daughter to—”

“I owe him nothing.” It was cold, and Komaeda sighed.

“...Of course,” he continued. “As I was saying, the murders are already a priority for you, but I don’t think it would be _wise_ for you to continue any sort of investigation inside the program by yourself. After all, we _are_ partners… Don’t you think I should be involved in more than just standing slightly outside the gate?”

“Komaeda-kun, it’s not safe—”

“Which matters about as much to _me_ as you’d assume,” he countered dryly, raising an eyebrow at her. “I’m just saying, it doesn’t seem conducive to an investigation to go alone when you _have_ someone that can back you up. Perhaps we’ll stumble upon your… shadow, was it? And find Nanami-san, I believe her name was? There seems to be plenty to do over there that you could use assistance with.”

Some part of her wanted to call off working together preemptively before he got himself killed, but a stronger part of her yearned for the truth of the world inside the program; the fear of Komaeda running into her shadow, though, was almost overpowering. Almost.

She crossed her arms, then her legs, and leaned back in her chair. Was it the fear of what the shadow might do to the both of them, unrelentless as it had been with Nanami? Or was it the fear of Komaeda finding out more about her than he had any right to know? A chill ran down her spine and she pursed her lips, Komaeda’s eyebrow still raised at her oddly uncharacteristic silence. A lull in conversation wasn’t anything new to her, but the air around the both of them was thick, and she inhaled slowly before opening her mouth.

“Fine,” she said, “I’ll agree with your proposal. Though I see no need to rush in unprepared, so perhaps we should wait until after exams are over, to give ourselves more time to be ready. As long as no one else stumbles upon it, the school and the students should be safe.”

He lowered his eyebrow, lifting a hand to cover his mouth thoughtfully. “What you’re saying is, use this opportunity to help gather information about Pekoyama-san’s involvement in the murders under the guise of tutoring? Killing two birds with one stone, I see. I suppose that means you want to wrap this case up first before any prospective computer program gallivanting.”

“In so many words, yes.”

“Then I _also_ suppose that means you at least have a solid starting point? Suspects?”

Kirigiri nodded. “I do. Along with Pekoyama-san, I also have Koizumi-san, Saionji-san, Tsumiki-san, and Mioda-san under suspicion, due to their connections to both victims.”

“Connections?” Komaeda repeated, tilting his head to the side. “I think I can safely say I have no idea what connections you could be talking about. I know Mioda-san and the others are friends, and Satomi-san was Koizumi-san’s friend, but where does Kuzuryuu-san factor into this?”

“Middle school,” she replied simply, and Komaeda’s quizzical expression only deepened. She picked the file up off the table, opened it, and turned it around before setting it down in front of him. “Mahiru Koizumi, Saeko Satomi, and Natsuko Kuzuryuu all attended the same middle school. Kuzuryuu-san was one year their junior, and part of the same photography club as Koizumi-san. During their two years together at the same school, Koizumi-san was the target of heavy bullying by Kuzuryuu-san, with Satomi-san often the one to figuratively pry her off in protection of Koizumi-san.”

Komaeda picked the file up off the table and read through it, humming to himself as he lifted a page and set it back down. “Your suspicion seems well-founded, but I still fail to see how Saionji-san, Mioda-san, and Tsumiki-san have a part in this aside from simply being Koizumi-san’s friends.”

“Look at the dates,” Kirigiri replied, standing up and leaning across the table to point at the date and time of death for both of the girls. “Natsuko Kuzuryuu was found dead in the afternoon on the 24th, and Saeko Satomi was found a day later mid-morning on the 25th. At first glance it seems as though they were simply found at different times, but the estimated times of death reveal Kuzuryuu-san was killed hours before her body was found, while Satomi-san was killed less than an hour before hers was found. If this was a serial killing, or even a double revenge killing, why wait so long between murders?”

He looked at the numbers her finger pointed to for a moment, processing the new information over and over again in his mind, before his eyes widened considerably and the corner of his mouth quirked up in a half-smirk. “I see,” he said, closing the file and looking up at Kirigiri. “You think Satomi-san and Kuzuryuu-san were killed by two different people.”

“Not only that,” Kirigiri said, sitting back down in her chair and recrossing her legs, “but I believe Satomi-san is Kuzuryuu-san’s murderer. And I also believe Koizumi-san had a part in covering it up.”

Komaeda whistled lowly, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, tapping the file on his shoulder rhythmlessly. “That’s a bold accusation, Kirigiri-san. But, how does Pekoyama-san factor into all of this?”

She didn’t miss a beat before replying, “You and I both know you know the answer to that, Komaeda-kun. You’re smarter than you make yourself out to be.”

“You’re very perceptive.”

“I made a living of it.”

In response to her raised brow, his smirk widened, and he closed his eyes and sighed. “You’ve got me, Kirigiri-san. In that case, I guess it does me no good to pretend as though I haven’t put together enough pieces myself. Pekoyama-san has a strange relationship with Kuzuryuu-kun that no one can find any information on, least of all from the two of them. Considering Kuzuryuu-kun and his sister are the children of the head of the most prolific yakuza family in Japan, it stands to reason he wouldn’t take too kindly to his sister being murdered, and would do something about it; however, _because_ of his standing as the heir to the Kuzuryuu crime family, it’s not beyond reason that he has the resources to contract someone to kill Satomi-san for him. Then, factoring in the odd and unknown relationship to Pekoyama-san, it’s highly likely she acted as his hitman and killed Satomi-san in an act of revenge on his part.”

“That’s one theory, yes.” Kirigiri grabbed her own drink off the table and took a sip, holding the straw between two fingers. “I have another working theory I’d like to explore, but at this point in time, either is valid. It’s a matter of keeping a close eye on Pekoyama-san and Kuzuryuu-kun while I gather evidence to make a case against them before bringing it to my father.”

“Kirigiri-san, accusing the son of a yakuza family is guaranteed to put a target on your head for the rest of your life.”

“Sacrifices must be made in the search for the truth,” she replied, setting her cup down. “That is the pursuit of justice. In any case, I know how to defend myself, so I’ll hardly go down without a fight. That being said, my safety isn’t the priority right now.”

Komaeda’s eyebrows furrowed together as he bit his bottom lip. This wasn’t an easy decision for him to make, and Kirigiri knew this— knew that asking him to put aside the safety of the both of them for the sake of a case wasn’t an easy thing to ask. She knew of Komaeda’s claim to infamy, his own disregard for the safety of himself, but this was something else entirely. He was willing to put his own life on the line, that much was for sure—

But he couldn’t throw hers away in the process.

“If you aren’t comfortable with this, I won’t force you to assist me with the double homicide case,” she said softly. “We will still investigate the program together. I know this is asking a lot.”

“Ahaha, ‘a lot’? This is asking more than one could ever ask of another human being,” Komaeda replied, laughing dryly. “Lucky for you, challenging the impossible is something I’m not afraid of.”

She nodded wordlessly, tapping her fingers on her cup. “Very well,” she said after an arduous moment, “we’ll start our investigation in separate directions. Use Pekoyama-san’s request for tutoring as a way to get information, while I work on Kuzuryuu-kun. Once this case is wrapped up, we can resume investigation of the program. Is this acceptable?”

Komaeda nodded. “I accept.”

* * *

“You— N-No, this isn’t—”

“Isn’t what? Isn’t possible? Isn’t _real_? Isn’t happening? You can see with your own eyes, can’t you?”

“That— That doesn’t matter! This isn’t— This isn’t real, this _can’t be_ real, _you_ aren’t real!”

“Oh? Is that so? Too bad for you, I’m as real as it gets. I’m just as real as you are; in fact, I _am_ you!”

“Wh-What?”

“C’mon, you know it’s true! I know all your dirty little secrets. How you’re not all that special after all, how you’re just playing yourself up as some protector of the peace out of nothing but _guilt_. Your life’s dream is cleaning up someone else’s mess! It’s not what you want to do at all!”

“No… No, that’s not—”

“Oh, come _on_. You’re gonna fight it? Really? That ‘strong will’ of yours is gonna get you killed one day, you know! Wouldn’t it be easier to just give up while you’re ahead?”

“I refuse! No… No matter what you are, or who! I— I won’t give up! I won’t give in! You’re just spouting off lies to get under my skin! Th-That’s all it is!”

A sigh. “God, you’re such a _fucking_ annoyance.”

“S-Stay back! Don’t— _hurk_!”

“ _Seriously_ , all you do is talk, all damn day, and all damn night, day after day, night after night, nonstop! You just don’t know when to shut up! You don’t know how to let things go, so you try to fight them by being some kind of saving grace of the common man, but the truth is, you’re no _better_ than the ones you lecture!”

“H— He—”

“Call for help all you want, but no one’s going to save you! All that training, all that _preparation_ , all for nothing! You can’t save yourself! You’ve never _wanted_ to!”

“I— I— I c-can’t—”

“All you’ve done your entire life is live in grandpappy’s _shitty_ shadow, deluding yourself that you can somehow erase his mistakes by acting like some self-righteous savior when the truth is, it’s not gonna do _jack shit_.”

“P-Please, I— _ngh_ —”

“Please what? Do you have something to say?”

Coughing. “That’s— You—”

“Come again?”

“You’re wrong! N-None of that is true! _You’re not me_!”

A beat of silence passed before manic laughter bubbled up. “Ahaha… Hahahahaha! That’s right! I’m not you anymore; I’m _me_! I’m my own person now, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

“You— No, this— this can’t be! S-Someone, please help!”

* * *

Miiko Shimamura was unlucky enough to live far enough away from Hope’s Peak Academy that her daily transport included two different busses and at least a mile of walking, no matter the weather, and her tendency to wake up late usually ended up with her missing her first period on the regular.

The fact that it was foggy only made it worse.

“Ugh, I can’t see anything!” she thought aloud, walking quickly through the fog on the way to school. She was happy to be a part of the reserve department, no matter how much effort it was to show up to school every day with her morning commute. Her parents had been willing to pay for tuition, but room and board was too steep for their budget, so she agreed to be responsible about getting to school on time in exchange for their help in paying tuition. “Dammit! Stupid fog!”

After nearly tripping over a couple stray cats, the main building of Hope’s Peak just barely came into view, meaning the reserve department building wasn’t that far away. She still had ten minutes to get to her locker, change her shoes, and make it to homeroom before being counted as late. Dutifully, she willed her legs to move faster (and almost tripped over an ill-placed rock) toward the school as the fog started to clear.

Her hand was on the front door of the reserve building when something near the other campus caught her eye.

Considering she was already late, it probably didn’t matter much if she was even _later_ , and after a moment of deliberation, she let go of the door handle and headed over to the main campus, squinting through the remains of the fog as the sun peeked out, ready to burn off the last of the morning fog. She stepped through the gates, walked through the courtyard, and stood under the telephone wires with her hands on her hips, looking up.

More of the fog cleared, and her heart stopped in her chest.

Hanging from the telephone wire was the body of Kiyotaka Ishimaru, leg wrapped in a wire and eyes open in shock, mouth in a gaping ‘o’.

As soon as Shimamura found her voice, she screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (old timey miner voice) OY! I STRUCK PLOT, BOYS!


	7. De Pilo Pendet

Police sirens blared out in the courtyard, and Yasuke Matsuda sighed, not sparing a glance up from his manga as he said, “Christ, what is it _now_? It’s the middle of homeroom.”

“You’re the one sitting by the window, Matsuda-san,” Sonia replied from across the room. “Couldn’t you look out of it and tell everyone what is going on outside and why the police are here? I would greatly appreciate it!”

Before Matsuda could fire off something snarky, Akane Owari looked out the window closest to her own desk and whistled. “Looks like some serious shit down there,” she said, “but I can’t really see much from here. They got an ambulance though. Er, or it’s the M.E.’s truck. I can’t really tell, but they’ve got _someone_ on a stretcher.”

Komaeda’s phone buzzed in his pocket as the rest of his classmates gathered around Owari to look out the window and assess the situation, and he was thankful as ever that Kirigiri was a to-the-point sort of person.

_Kirigiri Kyouko_

_08:45 2007/07/20_

_There’s been an incident._

The instructor had all but given up on restoring order and concentration in the classroom, but after gathering his books and throwing them in his bag, Komaeda still flashed him the signed piece of paper Kirigiri had acquired for him from her father stating his privilege to be excused from class with no penalties under ‘specific circumstances.’ The look in his eye and the understanding nod told Komaeda that Jin had done his job in informing all the instructors at the school of his involvement with the double homicide case. If Kirigiri was texting him in class, it had to have something to do with it.

He hurried down the stairs and out to the courtyard to meet Kirigiri, already standing there with her arms crossed, looking at a sheet-covered stretcher being hauled into the back of the coroner’s vehicle. “Another body?” he asked. “Is it connected to the case?”

“Considering who it is, my assumption is a hard ‘no,’”she replied, shutting her eyes tightly and inhaling deeply. “He was my classmate. Kiyotaka Ishimaru. One of the reserve department students found him this morning hanging from the telephone wire overhead.”

“No connection to either victim or the suspects, I presume? From what I’ve heard, there’s no nose cleaner than Ishimaru-kun’s, so it’s difficult to imagine him wrapped up in something like that.”

“Precisely. Which means there’s another murderer at Hope’s Peak unrelated to the first case. Whether serial or not I can’t say at this time, but I hope to God this is an isolated incident.” Her eyes glanced over at the trembling Shimamura, bumbling through giving her statement to the police officers on scene. “We cannot have a serial killer roaming around the school. It’s bad enough rumors have been flying that Genocider Shou is a student here; the last thing we need is another one.”

“Another one?” Komaeda repeated, genuinely confused. “Who’s to say this _isn’t_ the work of Genocider?”

“Have you read the case files for the Genocider murders?”

“It never particularly interested me, so no.”

She nodded. “In that case, I’ll give a summary. All of Genocider’s victims were found stabbed to death and crucified with many pairs of scissors. All of their victims were also men. At this point in time, there’s no apparent cause of death for Ishimaru-kun, ruling out Genocider’s involvement.”

“Ah… I see. No apparent cause of death, hmm? Well, I’m sure the medical examiner will find _something_. In the meantime, it might be worth investigating this murder and the other two simultaneously, on the off chance they _are_ related.” Komaeda put one hand on his hip and tapped his chin with the other. “It’s bad enough the police were involved. The last thing we need is for this to blow up in the media.”

“My father’s fears exactly,” Kirigiri replied, “which is why he’s requested that we clear any and all cases up as quickly and quietly as possible, lest something reach the news. Hope’s Peak would lose its reputation for the foreseeable future if that were to happen.”

“If bodies keep piling up like this, it won’t stay quiet long,” Komaeda said with a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest and shifting his weight to one foot. “I can’t fault Shimamura-san for calling the police, especially because she isn’t involved in the case and such a blunder is expected of a reserve student, but that doesn’t make our job any easier. On the plus side,” he continued, glancing over at Jin talking to a policeman, “it appears your father is at the very least _attempting_ to provide the police with a reason to keep this to themselves.”

“That’s the least of our problems,” Kirigiri said as the policeman taking Shimamura’s statement handed her his report. She thanked him quickly and flipped through her testimony. “The true test is keeping this between the students. The police I trust to be professional; the student body, I do not. Were it just between the main class, there would be less of a threat, as there are only around sixty students on the main campus. However, Shimamura-san is a reserve student, meaning this ordeal will more than likely spread among them, and I can’t guarantee _that_ can be quelled.”

Shimamura’s statement seemed solid, recounting what she had found upon being informed of another incident on campus. There was no indication of a personal relationship between Shimamura and Ishimaru, and the police had quickly thrown out the possibility of her being the killer— good on them, she mused to herself. It seemed they were capable of doing their job after all.

Still, there was too much that didn’t add up. How had the killer gotten his body up on the telephone wires? _Why_ dispose of the body that way? Furthermore, what was the cause of death? No external wounds were found and no blood was at the scene; what kind of a killer could accomplish a freak murder like this without leaving any trace evidence behind? She flipped back a page in the statement and tapped her finger on her lips. The police were likely going to attribute the strange death to Genocider Shou, as they tended to do whenever she found herself caught up in weird cases, despite the glaring differences in the Genocider murders and Ishimaru’s unfortunate death.

She sighed.

After one last look-over of Shimamura’s testimony, Kirigiri waved the medical examiner over as Komaeda looked over her shoulder to read the statement. “Are you taking the victim for an autopsy?” she asked, and the M.E. nodded.

“Yes,” he replied. “Do you need anything before we leave?”

“Actually, I would like to accompany you and be witness to it, if possible.”

The M.E. scratched the back of his neck and replied, “Well, we usually don’t allow civilians to do that, but… you’ve got a pretty prolific reputation, Kyouko-kun. You’re highly respected by the local government so in _my_ opinion, I think that would be fine. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Thank you,” she said with a nod. “I will be over in a minute or so.” He nodded as well and headed back over to the transport vehicle, and Kirigiri turned to Komaeda. “I’m leaving you in charge, Komaeda-kun.”

“In charge?” he answered, bemused. “I appreciate the sentiments but I’m not too sure what exactly you’re leaving me in charge of. I don’t hold much power around here, even factoring out the fact that at least ninety percent of the student body would like to see me get disappeared.”

“Dispel rumors,” Kirigiri replied, handing him Shimamura’s statement. “Ask questions, gather information, make sure this stays within the confines of Hope’s Peak Academy. Do not so much as _mention_ the name ‘Genocider Shou’ in regards to this case, as I’m sure most of the student body has already assumed this is their work. In layman’s terms, investigate. I’ll text you with any details.”

Komaeda’s eyebrows furrowed as he took the notepad from Kirigiri. “I’m not sure you caught that quip I just made about getting disappeared, but in any case, I’m likely not going to have much luck getting anything out of anyone. Half the school already thinks I had something to do with the first two murders.”

“Then give them a reason to think otherwise,” she shot back, crossing her arms. “I need you to stay here while I go with the medical examiner to oversee Ishimaru-kun’s autopsy. Hopefully some new information will come to light, but I need you to ask the students if they know anything about this or the other murders.” Komaeda’s eyes widened slightly in surprise and Kirigiri sighed, adding, “I don’t work with others. I find other people unreliable and would much rather investigate on my own. The fact that I am willing to work with you means I need you. As my _partner_.”

“Ah, using it against me, I see,” Komaeda replied with a sigh, wrinkling his nose in disappointment. “It appears manipulation is also a part of your repertoire… So be it. I’ll start with the reserve department.”

Kirigiri’s lips upturned in a smirk. “I knew you’d see it my way, Komaeda-kun. You’ve been excused from classes for the rest of the day, but the other students have not. You may have to budget your time accordingly.”

“My poor exam scores.”

“You haven’t scored lower than full marks on any exam since elementary school.”

He held a dramatic hand to his open mouth. “Kirigiri-san, you really _did_ read my file. I’m flattered. Embarrassed, even. You’ve seen all my dirty little secrets.”

“It was quite interesting. Perhaps we can discuss its contents at a later date,” Kirigiri replied flippantly, tilting her head in the direction of the medical examiner, who was just finishing up a conversation with one of the arriving police detectives. “However, I should be going. I trust you can handle this on your own?”

“I’m not the type to make promises I can’t keep, but I will make a _valiant_ effort.”

“Good.” With that, she turned on her heel and walked off toward the medical examiner’s vehicle and slipped gracefully into the passenger’s seat, Komaeda’s eyes following her until the medical examiner drove off.

He sighed, putting a hand on his hip and glancing over at the reserve department building with no hidden disdain.

It was no secret Komaeda was one of a few main course students with zero regard for the reserve department, whether through his actions or just by asking— he had no reason to hide his distaste, and thus felt no obligation to do so— but no one held quite a grudge as he did. Hope’s Peak was a school for the talented, for those who would one day be the hope of the nation. It was pure coincidence that someone like him had been chosen to attend such an institution, and even after almost a year and a half he never felt as though he had any place among the Super High School Level students.

But the reserve department was an _insult_.

A school for the talented should only admit _the talented_ , and the very idea of a preparatory school to “cultivate talent” for anyone willing to pay was a complete joke. Talent couldn’t be found. Talent couldn’t be _made_. Talent was given only to those born with it and implying otherwise was factually incorrect.

He had nothing against the students, of course; rather, the _idea_ that they, the inherently untalented, could ever become more than just that.

He clenched his fists inside his jacket pockets and kept his gaze low as he stalked over to the reserve building.

There were places— roles, so to speak— for society to follow, and if one wanted to make it in this world, the only choice they had was to follow their role. To stay in line and march along the path set before them upon their conception. Deviating from the path was frowned upon, and a stupid idea to boot.

One cannot become something they are not. If they were meant to become something, it was instilled at birth, coded into their very humanity.

All others should stay in their place.

It wasn’t hard to pick him out as a student of the main class: the uniform rule was extremely lax for the main course, but fervently enforced for reserve students. Komaeda stood out in a green jacket over the basic summer uniform (minus the tie, of course; ties were too tacky for his tastes) among the sea of white and brown more than he usually did for his pallid complexion and white hair, earning more than a few disbelieving looks from passing students. The reserve students parted around him like a hot knife through butter, and he wrinkled his nose again. Somehow, he was going to have to find a way to get someone to talk to him to at least establish a basis of what the reserve department as a whole likely knew about Ishimaru’s death.

His prayers were answered with a hot bowl of instant noodles to the chest as he rounded a corner.

The offender stood there, mouth open slightly, math textbook still open and in hand as Komaeda’s mouth turned sharply downward and he wiped the last few noodles hanging onto his shirt off with a hand. “You might find life slightly less dangerous if you _watch where you’re going_ ,” Komaeda snapped, looking at the fresh stain on his shirt.

“S-Sorry,”the other boy stammered, looking down at the empty plastic bowl and its previous contents on the floor between them.

“Oh, no, really, it’s _fine_ ,” Komaeda replied dryly, flicking a piece of fried tofu off of himself. “I heard second-degree burns are all the rage this year.”

“Are you really being… Look, are you okay? I’m really sorry. I have a math exam coming up and I’m behind on studying so I—”

“And the best time for that is in the middle of lunchtime while walking down the hallway with a bowl full of hot water? I question your common sense. Or lack of it, in this case. In any case, I have a few questions for you…” Komaeda looked at the kanji scribbled on the front of the math book and squinted. Such generic characters. With no furigana, it was a guessing game. “...Souji Utsui?”

He got a blank look in return. “That was… That was wrong. That was really wrong. It’s Hajime Hinata.”

“That’s even more generic than I had been expecting,” Komaeda replied with a raised eyebrow. “Fitting.”

“What the _hell_ is that supposed to m—”

“Anyway, I do still have those questions to ask you.” Hinata’s mouth snapped shut with a click of his teeth as Komaeda boredly crossed his arms over the still-damp spot on his shirt and shifted his weight to one foot. “What do you know about the incident?”

Hinata paled. “The, uh… The body, you mean? I heard one of the other reserve students found it. Everyone’s saying it was one of the main course students, b-but that’s all I really know. Some of the girls were talking about it when I was walking to class, so that’s all I’ve heard about it.”

“Have you told anyone else?”

“What? No. I don’t spread rumors.”

“What exactly _did_ you hear from these girls?”

“Don’t you need to write this down?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I have an eidetic memory. Stop dodging the question.”

“Well, uh,” Hinata started, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “One of them said that Shimamura found the body hanging from— from the telephone wires. Apparently no one else saw it because of the fog…”

Come to think of it, it _had_ been unusually foggy that morning when he had finally bothered to pull his eyes away from the book he’d foregone sleep to read. The past few days had been unusually rainy to match, so fog following rain wasn’t too much of a warning sign. He tapped his fingers on his upper arm and pursed his lips.

Wanting Ishimaru dead was a ridiculous thing to think about. There were plenty of people at Hope’s Peak that could have been killed for far better reasons. Kuzuryuu’s family was an infamous crime family; someone could easily have it out for him. Togami was the heir to the Togami Conglomerate and likely had his fair share of enemies for being such a _prick_ all the time. Even Kirigiri had a more likely chance of being a victim than Ishimaru— what could he possibly have done? The worst thing in his file was a self-imposed detention after he inadvertently broke a rule. That was hardly a _dent_ in his permanent record, let alone a good reason to off him.

Was he missing something? Was there something bigger he didn’t know about that led to this? He rubbed his temples as Hinata used his chopsticks sideways to scrape the mess of noodles on the floor back into the bowl. This entire ordeal was going to give him a headache.

“Are you sure that’s all you know?” he asked, frustrated.

“I told you, yeah. That’s it. One of the other students might know something, so you could ask around.”

“I’d rather not.” Komaeda’s voice was flat. “The only reason I’m here in the first place is because I’m doing Kirigiri-san a favor. Believe me, I don’t want to be.”

Hinata’s face twisted up in annoyance. “Then don’t be. No one’s forcing you to.”

“Excuse me?”

“Then _don’t be_ ,” Hinata repeated. “This may come as a surprise to you, but most people don’t enjoy being treated condescendingly. So if you don’t want to be here, then don’t. You don’t have to be an arrogant asshole.” His eyebrows were furrowed, eyes narrowed, and Komaeda’s eyes widened minutely. “We already know we’re not as great as the main course students, okay? So just… shut up.”

 _Something_ was gnawing at Hinata under his skin, and Komaeda smirked, bemused. “You say that, but the reserve department as a whole still exists, trying to capitalize on a useless dream of achieving the ultimate goal of finding a talent in a world that wasn’t kind enough to bestow one upon them at birth. It’s pointless.”

Before Komaeda could say another word, Hinata threw the lukewarm bowl of mushy noodles at him and clenched his fists and his jaw. “Would you _shut up_ already?! Your talent is _luck_. That’s not a talent! The only difference between you and me is that you got _lucky_ and I didn’t. We’re the _same_. So if you think I’m going to stand here and take your _bullshit_ , you’ve really got another thing coming!” Hinata turned on his heel and stomped off down the hallway, hand clamped around his math textbook like a vice.

He watched Hinata storm away as his phone buzzed in his pocket. It wasn’t until it buzzed again that he tore his eyes away from Hinata’s retreating form and pulled it out. The front screen showed two new text messages, one from Sonia and one from Kirigiri.

He decided to open Sonia’s first.

_Sonia Nevermind_

_10:12 2007/07/20_

_Komaeda-san! Pekoyama-san is looking for you!_   
_She says you promised her that you would tutor her_   
_in English for the upcoming exam. I told her you went_   
_out to the courtyard with Kirigiri-san. Is everything_   
_okay?_

The text was in English, as nearly all of their communication was with each other, if for nothing but Sonia’s own comfort. She was smart, no doubt about it, and her Japanese was very good, but she tended to trip over idioms and colloquialisms. It was easier to just talk with her in English overall, and having been raised bilingual himself, it was no trouble on his end either.

Perhaps it also had something to do with the fact that, in some ways, Sonia reminded him of his mother.

He quickly typed out a reply.

_Everything’s fine, don’t worry. Kirigiri-san and I are_   
_working together on something, that’s all. I’m over in_   
_the reserve department building right now, but I’m_   
_afraid Pekoyama-san will have to wait until I finish what_   
_I’m in the middle of._

He sent it, hitting the back button to view Kirigiri’s text. As he read it over, it buzzed in his hand with Sonia’s reply.

_Kirigiri Kyouko_

_10:12 2007/07/20_

_The medical examiner found something. Well, actually,_   
_he found nothing. Which means something, in this case._   
_Please find a way to get to the morgue as soon as possible._

 

_Sonia Nevermind_

_10:15 2007/07/20_

_Okay! I will let her know that, then._

He sent back his thanks and dropped his phone back into his pocket before heading back to the dorms to change.

* * *

Kirigiri stood outside the front entrance to the morgue, tapping her foot on the ground with her hands in her jacket pockets. It had been about twenty-five minutes since she had sent a message to Komaeda, and the morgue was a good fifteen minutes away by public transportation. His punctuality so far had been reliable. Five more minutes and she would text him again.

Four minutes passed and she pulled out her phone just as Komaeda turned the corner and pulled into the parking lot.

“A scooter?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

Komaeda took off his helmet and shrugged. “It was an impulse buy. I figured one day it would make itself useful. Anyway, you said the medical examiner found… nothing?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Though I don’t think we should discuss it out here. It’s best if you see the body yourself.”

“So straightforward. You must be fun at parties, Kirigiri-san.”

“You haven’t seen me dance on a table yet. At this rate, you might never.” She stepped to the side and held the door open, following him through it before swiftly strutting past him and down the hallway on the left. “The morgue is this way. I’ve asked the medical examiner to leave Ishimaru-kun’s body out of cold storage for the time being. Although, now that you’re here, I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit I hadn’t taken your well-being into account. Are you comfortable being in the presence of a dead body?”

She pushed open the preliminary doors to the morgue and grabbed a set of PPE for the both of them, handing one to Komaeda. He watched her get dressed before following suit, and said, “I would be lying if I said this was my first experience with a dead body. Though that’s not something I’d like to get into right now.”

“How interesting. Perhaps some other time, then.”

“How bold of you. Sadly, you must be a level four friend at minimum to unlock my tragic backstory. For the time being, all you need to know is I can handle it.” He waved the topic off with a dismissive hand motion before using his arm to nudge the door open, motioning for Kirigiri to go ahead of him.

The medical examiner looked up from his splayed-out notes on the empty autopsy table next to the one Ishimaru’s body was on and said, “Oh, you’re here. I’m Yasuyuki Honda, the prefecture’s medical examiner. You must be Nagito-kun. Kyouko-kun told me you’re working together on this case, and she insisted you see the body yourself. Is there anyplace in particular you’d like to start?”

“The findings, preferably,” Komaeda replied, eyeing the table of strewn-about papers. “Kirigiri-san said you found nothing?”

“Yeah. Nothing at all. That’s the troubling part.” Honda gathered up some of the papers and walked around the empty table to stand across from the two of them, the bright light over Ishimaru’s body giving his skin a pallid complexion. “I couldn’t find even one conclusive cause of death. Heart attack, poison, even something as creative as an air injection to an artery. There’s just no reason this boy should have died.”

“I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, Honda-san, but are you sure there isn’t something you missed? I’m sure you’ve seen bizarre deaths before with no apparent cause.”

Honda shook his head. “I checked everything I could think of. There’s no sign of any external _or_ internal trauma aside from lividity and blood pooling caused postmortem by the positioning of the body. If you wouldn’t mind?” He motioned to Kirigiri and she nodded, and together they flipped Ishimaru’s body over. There was a large, dark bruise-like mark across his upper back and shoulders that extended up the back of his neck.

Komaeda tapped his chin with a finger. “The lividity suggests Ishimaru-kun was hung from the wires almost _directly_ after death, if not perimortem. How is that possible?”

Kirigiri pulled out a small notepad and a pen, scribbling out some previous notes and amending them. “Is it at all possible that the position of the body was the cause of death?”

“No,” Honda said quickly. “His heart was without a doubt still by the time he was hung.”

“We have no evidence, and no cause of death...” Komaeda muttered to himself, and Kirigiri nodded solemnly.

“No evidence, no cause of death, and no leads.”

* * *

“Wait, _what_?! Peko, hold the fuck up, where are you _going_?! Don’t just dump that bomb on me and then leave!” Kuzuryuu shouted, stumbling out of his dorm room after a determined Pekoyama. He doubled his pace to keep up with her longer strides, catching up in a few seconds and grabbing her by the wrist. “Peko, what the _hell_ is wrong with you?!”

Her eyebrow twitched, but she kept her face a stone mask. “I’m following through on what I promised you weeks ago: I will ensure your safety no matter the personal cost to me.”

“This is _fucking crazy_ , though! I’m not going to sit around and watch you get yourself killed over something _I_ did! Just… Just let me go talk to that girl, and we’ll just— I don’t know, we’ll figure something out.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Pekoyama repeated, firmer than before. “I cannot allow that. I will do what needs to be done to close this case forever.”

Kuzuryuu grit his teeth until his face turned red before he inhaled sharply and held it, counting to ten before releasing it. “Look, I just— Don’t do this, Peko. You don’t need to _kill her_. That’s just another body to deal with.”

“I am sorry,” Pekoyama replied, bowing her head and flicking her wrist out of his grasp, “but once again, I am afraid I must go against orders.”

* * *

The bell in the clock tower chimed twice. Two in the morning. Kirigiri looked down at her own watch and frowned upon finding it was two minutes slow. She looked up at the sky in the stillness of the courtyard, watched by billions upon trillions of stars, and spared her sneaking guest nary a look over her shoulder.

“You’ve been keeping a close eye on the investigation, haven’t you?” she said aloud, crossing her arms and tapping her foot lightly. “You are not as subtle as you think, Pekoyama-san.”

Pekoyama bristled, but set herself into a proper stance and nodded, though it went unseen by Kirigiri. “You’re perceptive, Kirigiri,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Kirigiri’s back. “You were a defining factor in this entire situation.”

“I take it you know I spoke with Kuzuryuu-kun today when I returned with Komaeda-kun, and now you’ve come to kill me.” Her tone was light, almost mocking. If she was feeling any fear, she wasn’t showing it.

“In so many words,” Pekoyama replied, reaching behind her neck to grab the handle of her katana, “though he warned me against this course of action. Being reprimanded for going against orders is a small price to pay for ensuring his safety.”

“Of course,” Kirigiri said, voice still even as she pulled something out of each pocket and fiddled with them in front of her, “but if you think our meeting here was coincidence, or cleverness on your part, you’re sorely mistaken. I had been hoping to talk to you civilly about Kuzuryuu-kun’s actions and your subsequent attempt at masking them, but it appears you have other plans.”

Pekoyama’s lip curled as she tightened her grip on her katana, unsheathing it fully just in time for Kirigiri to spin around on her heel and hold an arm out, leaving her staring down the barrel of a Colt .45, complete with a silencer.

“I have no intentions of fighting you should you listen to what I have to say,” Kirigiri said calmly, cocking the gun with her thumb. “But I am prepared to defend my life should it come to it.”

She had not accounted for this.

She had not accounted for this, and it angered her. She gripped her katana with both hands and move to swing at Kirigiri’s neck, just barely missing as Kirigiri dodged and slicing off the braid in her hair instead. The fraying braid fluttered to the ground as Pekoyama recovered herself and Kirigiri stepped back a few paces, holding the place where her hair had been cut between gloved fingers and sighing quietly to herself.

It would take more than usual to take care of Kirigiri, it seemed. She appeared to be trained in some form of formal fighting, something that involved the inclusion of a weapon. Kirigiri’s proficiency with a revolver wasn’t something Pekoyama was looking forward to testing, and drew back before attacking again with quick slashes and jabs, nicking Kirigiri on the hip, waist, and outer arm as she parried and stepped out of the way, strike after strike. Her finger wasn’t even on the trigger anymore; rather, it was resting outside of the trigger, ready to fire at any moment but not hasty. For someone in high heels, her footwork was nearly flawless, and Pekoyama only felt fury burn hotter under her skin.

The question still remained, though: why had she not fired the gun yet? From this close it was a point-blank shot, easy enough to hit her square in the chest, in the stomach, in the neck, in the head, and end the fight, but she hadn’t. Wouldn’t, perhaps.

Kirigiri was not aiming to kill.

Pekoyama’s momentary lapse in focus led to a painful pistol-whipping as she lost her footwork and stepped too close. Her temple throbbed and she could taste blood in her mouth, but it would take more than that to stop her. With one eye closed to stave off a worse headache, she looked at Kirigiri from askew glasses to find her gripping her side with her free hand. One of her slashes must have cut deeper than originally thought.

“Pekoyama-san,” Kirigiri said through gritted teeth, chest heaving. “Senpai. Please.”

She reared up to attack again and Kirigiri took aim and pulled the trigger, hitting her in the shoulder and knocking her off-balance. The shock of the shot made her drop her katana, and Kirigiri felt her knees start to give way. She was losing a lot of blood, but maybe now she could have time to talk to Pekoyama without the violence.

Pekoyama was on the ground, bent over on her knees, holding her shoulder with the opposite hand, and Kirigiri clutched her side harder as a sloppy tourniquet and walked over to her, bending down to offer her a hand.

Before she could react, Pekoyama’s katana shot up from the ground and through her stomach, slicing through to the other side as her eyes grew wide with panic. After what felt like an eternity, Pekoyama withdrew the katana and slowly stood up with a quiet groan of pain, looking down at Kirigiri’s slow collapse to her knees. The gun fell out of her hand and tumbled against the pavement as Pekoyama used her injured shoulder to hold the katana high, ready to make one final strike.

The world around Kirigiri turned black and fuzzy at the edges, twisting and turning around and around as her mind grew blank and her consciousness started to fade. With her last moments of lucidity, she drew in a sharp breath.

“Per…”

Pekoyama’s katana raised higher.

“...so…”

“I am sorry, Kirigiri.”

“...na.”

She fell forward as the last syllable left her lips.

* * *

She wasn’t dead.

Or, perhaps, she was. The setting she found herself in wasn’t anything like the world she had lived in her entire life. Maybe it was the afterlife.

“Don’t worry,” said a voice, female by the sound of it. Smooth and confident, but just shy of sultry. “You’re still alive. Welcome to the Collective Unconsciousness.”

Kirigiri pulled herself to her feet and looked around, eyes stopping on the middle of the circle she had come to in. A golden butterfly slowly faded out, replaced by a young woman with mid-length red hair tied back in a ponytail and a mask bearing what could only be described as the ideal female face. Her clothes were simple, yet made a statement: a pair of business casual slacks and a white blouse under a partially-buttoned black blazer.

“...Who are you?” Kirigiri found herself asking before she could stop herself, any feelings of distrust or apprehension nonexistent for once.

The woman bowed her head slightly and replied, “My name is Philemon.”


	8. Felicitas Multos Habet Amicos

When Ikusaba finally stopped zoning out, Naegi’s face was a few inches from her own, and she nearly toppled the desk over in her mad scramble to scoot backward. Her face burned and Naegi only looked more worried.

“Are you okay, Ikusaba-san?” he asked, and Ikusaba nodded violently. “Um, okay… Anyway, did you hear what I was talking about? If you’re free, do you want to eat lunch together today? The weather is really nice, so I was thinking we could go eat on the roof! Oh, and do you want to visit Kirigiri-san after classes are out? I heard from Tsumiki-senpai that she’s still unconscious…”

Ikusaba opened her mouth before shutting it again and shaking her head. “I can’t… Junko-chan wouldn’t like that…”

Naegi frowned. “Ikusaba-san… Don’t you think, um… Don’t you think you let Enoshima-san dictate _too_ much of what you do? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if we ate lunch together or visited a recovering friend… If it would bother her that much, let’s just invite her, too.”

As if on cue, Enoshima sauntered up and pressed her chest against Naegi’s back, draping her arms across his shoulders from behind and resting her chin on top of his head. “My eeears were burning. Were you kids talking about little ol’ me?”

With a grimace, Naegi replied, “Well, I was just asking Ikusaba-san if she wanted to have lunch together and go visit Kirigiri-san after school, so… not really…”

“Oh, is _that_ it? Boooooriiiiiing,” Enoshima said with a snort, blowing Naegi’s stray lock of hair out of her face. “Anyway, she can’t do both. We’ve got plans after classes let out today, so it’s either a romantic picnic lunch with all the passion of a shared bento, or you go see Kirigiri now. Sorry, I don’t make the rules!”

“What do you want to do, Ikusaba-san?”

She looked from Naegi to her sister and back again before deciding the spot on the desk was more interesting to focus on. “I… Let’s go see Kirigiri-san,” she said quietly, slipping out of her seat and grabbing Naegi by the wrist, pulling him out from under Enoshima’s chin and half-dragging him out of the classroom.

As soon as they rounded the corner out of the classroom, she dropped his wrist and wrung her hands together in front of her. It wasn’t hard to tell which was the right choice to take. Enoshima was right: they had plans. And lunch together would have been _nice_ , but…

But there wasn’t time for it.

She kept her gaze trained at the floor as she shuffled down the hallway with Naegi in tow.

The air between them hung thick, a suffocating mass of tension for a good minute or so before Naegi cleared his throat. “You, um… You don’t have to—”

“Junko-chan loves me,” Ikusaba countered almost silently, nearly lost between footsteps.

“I— Well, I’m sure she does, but—”

“Junko-chan is smart,” she said, “and pretty. A model’s job is to be influential. A soldier’s job is to follow orders. That’s just how it is. That’s just how it’s always been. That’s how it always will be. I’m…” She trailed off, looking to the side and crossing her arms tightly over her chest. “Junko-chan is everything I’m not and won’t ever be, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. But… But she loves me, and I love her… That’s enough.”

The tension heightened as Ikusaba slid open the door to the infirmary, finding a surprised Komaeda sitting there reading an issue of _Cat Fancy_. Kirigiri was still unconscious on the bed across from him, chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly. Perhaps the most notable thing was the sudden short length of her hair, cut to the shoulders, choppy and uneven.

“Oh, Komaeda-senpai,” Naegi said, bowing his head. “I didn’t expect to see you here… Um, how is she?”

Komaeda set down the magazine and said, “Well, she’s still under anesthesia from the emergency surgery the nurse had to do on her, but otherwise she should be waking up soon enough. She’s lucky Tsumiki-san was on night duty or she might not have made it. We’re still not sure who dropped her off at the infirmary last night, but whoever it was saved her life.”

“And her, um…” Ikusaba motioned at her own hair, flipping the ends of it.

“Ah, yes. She already had a large portion of it missing, so I figured she wouldn’t mind terribly if I evened it out for her. Granted, I’m not a hairdresser, so it didn’t turn out entirely… _even_ , but.”

Naegi nodded. “How long have you been here? I heard she was dropped off around two this morning…”

“Oh, well,” Komaeda started, waving a hand flippantly, “I’ve actually been here since about three this morning. I got a rather panicked call from Tsumiki-san on Kirigiri-san’s phone telling me to come to the infirmary. My instructors are aware of my absence, and it’s been excused. Pekoyama-san’s, however…” His eyes darted over to the other side of the room, where Pekoyama sat unnoticed in a chair in the corner, right arm in a sling and head down with her other arm resting on her knee. He turned back to Ikusaba and Naegi. “It appears whomever attacked Kirigiri-san managed to injure Pekoyama-san as well, or so I’d assume. She didn’t show up until about an hour after I had gotten here, and hasn’t said a word since.”

“Could she have been the one that brought Kirigiri-san?” Naegi asked, and Komaeda shrugged.

“It’s possible, but I don’t understand why she would bring her here and then leave while injured herself. I’m sure once Kirigiri-san wakes up, she’ll be able to sort this out more. The nurse said the anesthesia should be wearing off soon, but that Kirigiri-san probably won’t be able to take any visitors for a while afterwards. Though, knowing how stubborn she is, she’ll be up and about in no time.”

“That’s unwise,” Ikusaba said flatly. “It’s likely she lost a lot of blood. She shouldn’t be moving around for a few days.”

Komaeda gave a small smile, amused. “Of course. I don’t think she cares, though.”

“Okay, um,” Tsumiki said, shuffling into the room with her nose in a stack of papers, “Kirigiri-san looks like she’s definitely going to be okay, and she may wake up earlier than expected? I don’t know her tolerance to anesthesia… But I’ve also got some pain medication for Pekoyama-san if she w—” She looked up and jumped, throwing the papers up in surprise. “O-Oh, um, h-hello! I-I-I didn’t know we had visitors…”

Naegi raised both hands in front of him. “N-No, it’s fine, we’re just—”

“Please excuse my rudeness!” Tsumiki cried out, clasping her hands in front of her and bowing low to the floor. “I-If I knew Kirigiri-san would have any v-visitors other than Komaeda-san I would have, um… I-I would have prepared! Do you need a seat? Something to drink? Or p-perhaps you want me to punish myself? Wh-What do you want me to do? Make animal noises? Drink out of the toilet?”

“You don’t have to do that!” Naegi said quickly, and Tsumiki stopped wringing her hands together. “We just wanted to see how Kirigiri-san was doing. Here, let me, um, help you pick these up…”

She sniffled and got down on her hands and knees, muttering thanks over and over again to Naegi for assisting her in her ineptitude, to which Naegi repeated that it wasn’t her fault. Ikusaba raised an eyebrow and waited for both of them to stand up.

“Don’t you have classes, Tsumiki-senpai?” she asked.

“W-Well, yes, but…” Tsumiki wiped away a stray tear. “It’s Saturday, s-so, um… I don’t have classes until nighttime… It’s part of my contract w-with the school. I spend my Saturdays helping out in the infirmary!”

“Oh, really?” Naegi asked, handing her the stack of papers back. “I thought you were the night nurse.”

“O-Only Sunday through Friday. Saturday nights are my night off…”

“Tonight specifically, the regular nurse has the night off as well,” Komaeda interjected, crossing his legs. “I’ve offered to stay here through the night with Kirigiri-san, because God knows when she wakes up she’ll try to run a marathon.”

“Why would she be running a marathon…?” Ikusaba wondered out loud, furrowing her eyebrows.

Almost hesitantly, Naegi put his hand on her arm. “That, uh. That was sarcastic…”

“Oh.” She looked a little embarrassed, but recomposed herself somewhat. “R-Regardless, as long as someone’s here with her, she should be fine.”

Tsumiki nodded. “Y-Yes, exactly. Um, Ikusaba-san, c-can I ask you a question?”

“Huh? O… Okay.”

She twisted her fingers together again and looked at her feet, turning her toes inward. “Um, your sister… Enoshima-san… I-Is she… seeing anyone right now? L-Like… like a boyfriend, o-or, um… or a… a girlfriend?”

Ikusaba raised her eyebrows. “Well, uh,” she started, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, “she’s in love with Matsuda-kun. And he returns it…”

Tsumiki’s face fell. “Oh… I see…”

“They’re not _together_ , though. I… I honestly don’t know _what_ they are. If you’re wondering if you’ve, uh…”

“Got a chance?” Naegi offered, and Ikusaba nodded.

“Y-Yes, if you’ve got a chance, you… might? You’d have to ask Junko-chan yourself.”

In a fraction of a second, Tsumiki’s expression went from depressingly downtrodden to bright and hopeful. “Really? You… You really think so? Th-Thank you, Ikusaba-san! Thank you so much…!” Her eyes darted over to the clock on the wall, and she gasped quietly. “Oh, but, um, lunchtime is almost over! I-If you don’t hurry, you’ll be late to class! Don’t worry about Kirigiri-san. Komaeda-san and I are here with her!”

“She’s definitely in capable hands,” Komaeda added, “but you should get back to class. I have… a feeling there will be an announcement you don’t want to miss.” He waved them off without elaborating on his cryptic statement, picking up the issue of _Cat Fancy_ he was thumbing through earlier and opening it to a random page. “My, that cat _is_ fancy.”

Naegi nodded, thanked the both of them, and left the infirmary with a confused Ikusaba in tow. Tsumiki waved goodbye at them before turning to face Komaeda. He looked over the top of the magazine at her, raising an eyebrow.

“You said… there would be an announcement?” she asked. “Does it have something to do with what you and Kirigiri-san are, um… investigating?”

He lowered the magazine. “You didn’t stutter.”

“Huh? I-I mean, I can if you want me to! I-I can even s-stutter more if you want! It’s just that I… I felt a little more c-comfortable around you, s-so I wasn’t as nervous…”

“Oh, it’s not a bad thing,” he replied. “I was just making an observation. Anyway, in answer to your question, yes. The headmaster should be making the announcement after classes today at some sort of assembly, I’d assume. It may be a special one, however. I don’t believe he’d leave the reserve department out of this one.”

She tugged on the ends of her hair and bit her lip. “Th-That sounds bad… I guess the rumors are true then. E-Everyone’s been saying they found another body on campus, and that it was another main course student.”

Komaeda nodded. “I won’t go into details, but yes. It was.”

“That’s not the worst part though… Um, a-a lot of people are saying _you_ did it.”

He blanched. “Excuse me?”

“I told them you didn’t!” Tsumiki replied hastily, clasping her hands together in front of her mouth. “Lots of people were saying, ‘I bet Komaeda-san did it! H-He’s so weird, and he was always hanging around a-after the other two girls were found!’ B-But I told them you wouldn’t! I said, ‘Komaeda-san isn’t like that! H-He’s not that nice all the time, a-and maybe he’s a little strange, but he’s not a killer!’ but no one believed me!”

The air in the infirmary hung stale in the silence for a moment before Komaeda snorted, covering his mouth with a hand to stifle a chuckle. Pekoyama furrowed her eyebrows at him from the corner and Tsumiki looked more worried. After a good minute or so of quiet laughing to himself, Komaeda leaned back in his chair and uncrossed his legs, recrossing them the other way before crossing his arms over his chest. He looked more amused than usual.

“Komaeda-san, are… are you…”

“Oh, yes, I’m fine,” he said, the remnants of a giggle still in his voice. “That’s just… amusing, you could say. Most of the school already thinks I’m personally responsible for dropping that bookshelf on that student so it’s nothing I’m not used to. It’s ridiculous to assume these things about someone solely because of a few pieces of incredibly circumstantial ‘evidence,’ after all.”

Tsumiki started tugging on her hair again silently as the monitor in the infirmary lit up with an announcement.

“Good afternoon,” said the boy on screen. “If you don’t know who I am, my name is Soshun Murasame, and I’m your student council president. In about twenty minutes we’ll be having a school-wide assembly with _mandatory_ attendance. Reserve department students are required to attend as well. The assembly will be held in the gymnasium. Thank you for your time.”

“M-M-M-M-M-M- _Mandatory_?!” Tsumiki stammered out, yanking on her hair harder. “B-But I have to be h-here with K-Kirigiri-san! Someone has to be here with Kirigiri-san! A-And with Pekoyama-san! Neither of them have been released f-from my custody as the n-nurse yet, I can’t just—”

“I’ll stay,” Komaeda said. “I’m excused from more than just classes. And, like you said, neither Kirigiri-san nor Pekoyama-san has been released yet, meaning they’re also exempt from the mandatory attendance policy. They’ll be fine; I’ll be here with them.”

He had about half a second to react before Tsumiki shot across the gap and hugged him, burying her face in his chest; unfortunately, his reflexes weren’t fast enough, and before he could respond, he found himself with a faceful of her hair and a little snot on his shirt as she cried out a muffled, “Thank you, Komaeda-san! I-I’ll do anything to repay you!”

“Letting go of me would be a great place to start,” he said flatly.

“O-Oh, right…” She released him from her hold and stood back up, tugging on the end of her apron as a blotchy blush spread up her neck. It was hard to classify Tsumiki as necessarily _ugly_ , nor was she outstandingly attractive, but Komaeda had to admit the blotchiness of the blush wasn’t doing much for her. She tugged harder on her apron, fisting the material in her hands, and said, “Um, I should… I should go… I-I don’t want to be late.”

“Of course.”

Tsumiki took one last check of Kirigiri’s vitals and gave an awkward bow before half-jogging out of the infirmary.

Komaeda boredly turned another page in his magazine, humming to himself. “You know,” he said after an agonizing silence, “it really is _interesting_ that someone would attack you and Kirigiri-san with different weapons.”

He saw Pekoyama stiffen up in his peripheral vision and lowered the magazine, tapping the crease between pages on his chin.

“What do you want from me?”

“The truth,” he said, eyeing her carefully. “All of it.”

* * *

A hand slid around Matsuda’s shoulder and past his tie, down into the front of his shirt, and he sighed as its partner met it underneath his shirt and a chin rested on his shoulder. “What do you want, Otonashi?”

Enoshima made a face. “Yasuke-chaaaan, why do you _still_ call me that? It’s annoying.”

“It’s _your name_. Must be why it’s annoying. Matches your super ugly face.”

She pulled her hands out of his shirt and wrapped her arms around his neck from behind, keeping his throat in the crook of her elbow. “You’re so mean. I might just have to kill you, right here! It’d be so easy. I could see your misery up close and personal! Oh, it’d be so pretty, wouldn’t it?”

“Living with you causes me more despair than dying ever could, thanks.” She planted a kiss on his cheek and he cringed. “You’re eerily calm about whatever the hell we’ve been called to the gym for. Do you have something to do with it?”

In an instant, she released him from her hold and leaned back in her seat, crossing one leg over the other and crossing her arms under her boobs. “I’m insulted,” she said, flat. “You of all people should know if I had something to do with it, I’d be taking credit for it. As it stands, I have no idea what’s going on, but it’s probably got something to do with that _rumor_ flying around that they found someone else dead.”

“I never took you for the type to believe in bullshit rumors, Otonashi.”

She smirked as he looked back at her from over his shoulder. “Rumors have more power than you think, Yasuke.”

Oowada leaned forward from three seats to her right and scowled. “Can’t you fuckin’ flirt some other time? This shit’s important. Shut the hell up.”

While Fujisaki nervously tried to explain that Oowada was on edge because Ishimaru was too sick to show himself, she was cut off by the rolling silence over the students as Murasame walked on stage and stood at the podium. He cleared his throat and began.

“Good afternoon,” he said, tone unwavering and serious. “In case you missed the announcement earlier, I’m Soshun Murasame, the student council president. Under normal circumstances, an assembly would be held for the main course only; however, these are rather dire circumstances that require a campus-wide meeting and announcement. Those of us who are aware of the situation have been instructed to stay quiet on the matter for the safety of all of you, but we can’t keep quiet forever. Now, the headmaster will make an announcement. I’d like to ask that you all stay seated until dismissed after the announcement has been made. Thank you.”

He stepped aside for Jin, taking his place in the background as Jin shuffled through a small stack of papers for a moment before sighing and setting it down. He gripped the sides of the podium and breathed in deeply before exhaling.

“As you’re all aware,” he started, “there have been a few incidents on campus these last few weeks. The investigation into Saeko Satomi and Natsuko Kuzuryuu’s murders is still ongoing, but I assure you, I have the best investigators working on that. However, in the wake of these murders, we’ve lost another student from the main course. You may have heard a rumor that a body was found yesterday. I’m here to confirm that. The body found yesterday belonged to first-year student Kiyotaka Ishimaru.”

In a flash, Oowada stood up fast enough to cause his folding chair to topple over and hit the student behind him in the knees as he forced his way through the row of chairs and out to the aisle, Fujisaki hot on his tails and calling out to him frantically. The entire gymnasium’s eyes were on him as he kicked open the gym doors and disappeared from sight, eerily silent aside from his fading steps.

But what caught everyone’s attention almost immediately was a shrill, “What the _fuck_?!” that rang out from where Oowada had stormed off, and everyone turned to find an irate Enoshima with her fists balled up at her sides and her mouth in an ugly snarl.

“Miss Enoshima, please sit back down,” Jin tried to say, but Enoshima’s impassioned shout cut him off.

“No fuckin’ way! I’m not gonna sit down just ‘cause you said I should! Another body, eh? Another fucking body!” She grit her teeth harder and pointed an accusatory finger at Jin. “Isn’t your _job_ to keep us safe? To run this sad, shitty excuse for an institution in a way that benefits all of us? Why can’t you _keep us alive_ , then?! I didn’t know Satomi or Kuzuryuu, and honestly, I really don’t _care_ about either of them, but whatever sick fuck is running around offing us one by one made a _big mistake_ laying his creepy, disgusting paws on one of my friends.”

Ikusaba tugged lightly on her sister’s shirt and whispered, “Junko-chan, please just sit down,” only to have her hand slapped away before Enoshima stood on top of her chair for a better vantage point.

“I don’t think you’re fit for your job anymore, Jin Kirigiri!” she continued, crossing her arms deftly over her chest. “You say you’ve got the situation handled, but we haven’t seen jack shit in the direction of solving Satomi or Kuzuryuu’s murders, so why should we believe you that you can do anything about Ishimaru’s now?”

One of the third year girls stood up in the front of the gymnasium and said, “She’s right! How can we feel safe going to school here if you can’t keep us from getting killed? And who’s to say whoever this guy is won’t head for the reserve students, too? None of us are safe here!”

“That’s not true!” Sonia protested loudly, standing up on her own chair down the row and in front of Enoshima, turning to face her with her hands on her hips. “Kirigiri-san is trying his very hardest to keep this school safe amidst these horrible tragedies, which is more than I can say for any of you! Not even myself! We have done nothing but blame someone else for everything when now is the time to come together as one unit and stand against whatever heinous criminal is doing this!”

Enoshima put her own hands on her hips, leaned forward slightly, and sneered. “Oh, look, little miss princess is here to treat us like her peasant subjects, how nice. Look, blondie, no one asked you. Maybe you’re new to this whole ‘equal to the rest of us’ thing, but I’m talking, which means I’ve got the floor. So shut up.”

“Students, please, just—”

“I am entitled to my own opinion!” Sonia shouted back, face scrunched up in frustration. “And I know I am not the only one! All your fear mongering is going to do is incite more terror in the students, and more and more rumors will be flying! Accusations begin, rumors spread, and lives are ruined, Junko Enoshima! Do you really want to be the one responsible for making this situation worse?”

“Sonia’s right!” Owari said, hopping up onto her own feet and punching one hand into the other palm, hips cocked to the side. “This whole shitstorm is only gonna get worse if you try to start some kinda riot right now! We gotta work together on this and have faith that whoever he’s got investigating is damn good at their job!” A few of the other second years agreed with her with a few murmurs, and Sonia smirked.

The smirk fell from her face quickly at Enoshima’s own wicked grin right before the reserve students in the back erupted into chaos and the entire gym was filled with shouting and yelling, arguments back and forth as Enoshima stood there above the crowds with her hands on her hips. The queen surveying her hectic kingdom as Sonia looked around in fear.

Her eyes met Enoshima’s straight on, grey-on-blue, and Enoshima grinned wider before mouthing, “This is only the beginning.”

* * *

Kirigiri’s tongue felt heavy in her mouth as she repeated, “Philemon,” taking in the woman again. “Philemon… Carl Jung’s spiritual guide. Yes?”

“Conceptually speaking, yes. In reality, you could say the same, I suppose. Do you know why you’ve been called here?”

“No.”

“As expected. A simple question, then: what is your name?”

Thousands upon thousands of names flew through her head, different combinations of kanji floating around until her mind settled on one specific grouping and she replied with, “Kyouko Kirigiri,” to Philemon’s delight.

“Very good,” she said, impressed. “Not many people can remember their own names in this realm. I applaud you.” Philemon crossed her arms across her chest and fixed Kirigiri with a pointed look. “As I said before, this is the Collective Unconsciousness of humanity. A realm of thought. I’ve brought you here because you’ve unlocked a potential within yourself.”

Philemon held out her hand and a small image manifested, a masked angel with short, choppy blonde hair and broken chains hanging from its cuffed wrists. Behind it, a pair of gleaming white wings spanned out, spattered with sections of loosening black feathers. Kirigiri’s first thought was that it looked similar to what her shadow had transformed into, and Philemon seemed to pick up on it, closing her hand and recrossing her arms.

“We call it ‘Persona,’” she said. “It’s one of the many ‘masks’ you wear as a human. A facet of yourself, in so many words. Humans wear many different masks, which manifest as their different personae. As you may have already realized, there are dark forces at work in your school, and with time, they will spread to the rest of the world; in some cases, they already have. This is your ‘journey.’”

“The arcana,” Kirigiri replied simply, continuing with, “the Journey of the Fool. All of this ties into my ‘journey,’ and the… the world beyond the program.”

“It won’t be easy, and will be rife with danger. You’ll need plenty of allies.”

Kirigiri nodded, and set her mouth into a line. “I accept, then.”

* * *

The crippling pain in her side didn’t seem like it’d be going away anytime soon, and Kirigiri groaned as she opened her eyes, squinting in the light of the infirmary. She knew better than to rip out the IV in her arm, regardless of an alarming fraction of movies showing the protagonist doing just that, and sat up in her bed, gritting her teeth at the sharp pain. She untied the robe-like hospital gown and inspected the large square of folded gauze taped over her wound, assuming there was one in the back.

Her self-inspection was interrupted by a quiet cough, and she looked up to see Komaeda sitting across from her with a front row view of her bra.

“I didn’t realize you were here,” she said, blinking before closing the gown again. “My apologies.”

“Understandable,” he replied, uncrossing his legs and standing up. He stretched out his back and walked over to stand next to her bed. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Kirigiri-san.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“About twelve hours, I’d say. You’re lucky someone brought you to the infirmary or you’d likely have bled out in the courtyard. Ah, speaking of…” He trailed off, glancing at the door. “Pekoyama-san’s outside. She wants to talk to you.”

Kirigiri’s nose wrinkled. “Good,” she said, “get her in here so I can shoot her again. Where’s my gun?”

Komaeda put his hand on her shoulder to push her back down as she sat up again and tried to get out of the bed. “As entertaining as that would be, that’s not the best course of action. Anyway, while you were unconscious, Pekoyama-san and I had a conversation about the events of last night, and I think it would behoove you to at least listen to what she has to say.”

“I don’t trust her.”

“You shot her.”

“She _stabbed me_ ,” Kirigiri countered. “I could have died. But, fine, bring her in here. If anything, I can put the double homicide case to rest and focus on Ishimaru-kun’s killer.”

“Fantastic. I’ll be out in the hall,” Komaeda said over his shoulder as he opened the door and slid through it, holding it open for an apprehensive Pekoyama to enter the room.

Her arm was in a sling and her signature sword bag was missing, wearing nothing but a tanktop and a pair of oversized sweat pants. It was odd to see her out of her usual getup, but what was odder were the scrapes on her elbows and various cuts and bruises all over her body. Aside from the blossoming bruise on the side of her face from getting hit with the gun and the bullet that lodged itself in her shoulder, Kirigiri hadn’t injured her at all the night before.

It wasn’t until Pekoyama lifted her head that she noticed the ends of her hair were singed as well.

“You’re awake,” she said simply, to which Kirigiri nodded. “That’s… good. I was slightly worried I had brought you here too late.”

“Out of guilt?” Kirigiri replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Perhaps. Mostly… something more.”

“Who did this to you?” Kirigiri asked, sitting up fully in bed and trying not to wince at the pain of her agitated wounds. “After I passed out, who did this to you? I only hit you twice.”

Pekoyama’s breath hitched and she said, quietly, “You. You did. Something… Something ‘came out of you’ and attacked me. I can’t— I don’t know how to explain it. It wasn’t— It wasn’t human. Part of it feels like a dream, like I’d imagined it… but the bruise on my back from being slammed into the fountain says otherwise.”

_We call it ‘Persona.’ It’s one of the many ‘masks’ you wear as a human. A facet of yourself, in so many words. Humans wear many different masks, which manifest as their different personae._

Kirigiri’s eyes widened. “So, it’s true,” she muttered to herself, before shaking her head. “Komaeda-kun said you wanted to talk to me about Satomi-san and Kuzuryuu-san. I take it from our _altercation_ last night you’ve gathered that I have decisive and conclusive evidence that Satomi-san’s murderer is Kuzuryuu-kun. However, for reasons unknown to me, you’ve been taking actions to point the evidence toward yourself. It was mostly in vain, but the point still stands that you were willing to risk your own freedom and life for him.”

“My relationship with and to him is… complicated,” Pekoyama said, “but I would do anything to ensure his safety. He had advised me not to… encounter you, but I went against his orders. It’s likely the guilt in my heart over him led me to save your life. But…”

Slowly, agonizingly, Pekoyama knelt down to the floor at the end of Kirigiri’s bed on both knees and leaned forward until her good forearm hit the floor, head bowed. It was humiliating, humble, the most demeaning form of begging one could possibly take part in. Dogeza.

“You spared my life,” she said to the floor, “and now I beg that you spare his. I… I am willing to do whatever you need me to, be whatever you need me to be— please, just… please just guarantee me his safety. Please grant me this.”

She had no reason to trust Pekoyama, and she knew Pekoyama had no reason to trust her, but she was begging for Kuzuryuu’s life and safety, knelt on the floor like a servant to a king, sacrificing her own dignity for Kuzuryuu no matter how terribly it would impact any reputation she might have had. It was hard to argue with it, and Philemon’s words rang clear in Kirigiri’s mind: she would need allies.

“I don’t trust you,” she said simply, and Pekoyama slowly pulled herself to her feet. Her eyes met Pekoyama’s and she added, “But I’ll accept your help on one condition: anything you see, hear, or learn stays between you, myself, and Komaeda-kun. Do you understand?”

Pekoyama nodded. “I accept your condition.”

**_Thou shalt have our blessing when thou choosest to create a Persona of the Fortune Arcana…_ **

**_> You have established a new social link!_ **


	9. Caput Lupinum

“What’s this?”

“Lethal. Don’t touch it.”

“Ooh, can I have it?”

“What the _fuck_ did I just say? No! Put that down.”

“But I waaaant it.”

“I don’t care! Holy shit, you are so annoying.”

Enoshima’s lips peeled back into a smile that showed off too many teeth at once and she fluttered her eyelashes, leaning forward on the examination table and kicking one leg up behind her. “You don’t mean that, Yasuke-chan. You love me! I know you do, I do! You can’t hide it from me.”

“Otonashi,” he said, sighing and looking up from the file in his hands with a decidedly unamused expression, “your entire existence is completely awful and being with you is like inviting a slow-forming hernia to do what it pleases. Now if you don’t mind, would you _please_ get your massive ass out of here and leave me to my patient in peace. I have an appointment.”

She pouted. “I’m boooooored, though. Summer break is in three days and there’s nothing to do until then. And you’re my boyfriend, so you should entertain me.”

“Not your boyfriend.”

“You love me!”

“Still not your boyfriend,” Matsuda said flatly, putting his hand on Enoshima’s forehead and pushing her off of the examination table. “Now get out already.”

“You heard him,” came a voice from the doorway, and Matsuda looked up to see a disgusted Komaeda with his arms crossed over his chest and a sneer he wasn’t bothering to hide. Enoshima’s face lit up with wicked joy. “Your presence is unnecessary for what Matsuda-kun and I have planned.”

She hopped up onto the examination table and flipped onto her side to face the door, head propped up on one elbow and legs crossed at the ankles. “What, no ‘Enoshima’? No ‘Junko’? Nothing? That’s so _rude_ , Nagito-chan. You should really refer to people by their names!”

“Oh, I do,” he replied, raising an eyebrow. “You don’t count as ‘people.’”

“Just ignore her,” Matsuda said, wrapping his arms around her middle and pulling her off the examination table before setting her butt down on his desk. “Stay there,” he instructed her, and she kicked her legs with both hands in her lap. It was almost cute.

It wasn’t something he wasn’t used to. After dealing with Enoshima’s off-the-wall antics for upwards of a decade, it was second nature to deal with then ignore her, despite her boredom. “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings!” she’d said to him once when they were kids, tilting the magnifying glass she’d been using to roast a mouse’s corpse enough to burn a hole through his pantleg. He’d taken her to be a typical airhead when they’d first met but soon enough, she’d shown her true colors as the rude, crass, unsettling person she was under all that feigned innocence and puppy-dog eyes.

Junko Enoshima was a human wreck.

And Matsuda fell in love with her.

The ‘why’ behind his feelings was something he never really could put a finger on. There was absolutely nothing redeemable about Enoshima at all— she reveled in people hating her as much as she reveled in people loving her and made no distinction between treating people differently based on their feelings. She treated herself like a queen and the world followed her all the way to a modeling career when she could have gotten into a school like Hope’s Peak Academy off her seemingly endless intelligence alone. Manipulating people came as easy as breathing to Enoshima, and though Matsuda didn’t _really_ care that much for Ikusaba, it was clear she shouldered the brunt of it silently.

Though she had no redeemable qualities whatsoever, he had to admit it was almost impressive that she never made an effort to manipulate him. Even as children, she’d just _taken_ to him and declared herself his friend, and maybe he went along with it because he was lonely, or maybe he was just a massive fucking idiot— but either way, she’d made it more than clear that she could twist him around her finger just like she could anyone else.

But she never did.

Everything he had ever done for her, with her, had been out of love. A twisted form of love, yes, but genuine and pure. As horrible as her presence was sometimes, and as much as he professed to hate her to anyone who would listen, his hatred couldn’t surpass his feelings for her.

And it fucking irritated him.

She grinned at him widely and he sneered, turning back to Komaeda with the pen he’d snatched off his desk when he’d set Enoshima down on it. “How’s your memory been these last two weeks?” he asked as Komaeda sat down on the edge of the examination table, crossing his legs and leaning back onto his hands. “Any gaps?”

“That I’m aware of, no,” he responded. “Everything seems to be in normal functioning order. For now, anyway.”

Matsuda hummed to himself and flipped a page in the file. “Can you recite what I had you memorize last time?”

“I have an eidetic memory, Matsuda-kun. I’m not going to spontaneously lose it for likely a long time.”

“Just fucking do it.”

Komaeda sighed. “Fine. 200 digits of pi. 3.14159265358979323846264338327…” He cited them off one by one as Matsuda followed along on the sheet of paper stapled inside the file and Enoshima thumbed through one of Matsuda’s manga volumes.

“Good. January 26th, scientists were reported to have developed what?”

“‘SQUID,’ short for ‘superconducting quantum interference device.’ Designed as a more advanced way of scanning for explosives in luggage and landmines using radio waves. It was designed specifically to detect nitrogen— element number seven, period two, group fifteen, average atomic mass of 14.007 grams, nonmetal, before you ask— which is commonly found in explosives such as TNT. I told you, it’s not going to disappear over two weeks.”

“No one’s saying it will,” Matsuda replied, making a few notes in the file. “An eidetic memory is rare as it is, with most people unable to continue the ability later in life, but you’ve proven yourself once again to be Captain Impossible. When you remember everything, suddenly being unable to do just that is jarring. Which is why I’m bothering to give a fraction of a shit about you, Komaeda. You’re a once in a lifetime test subject.” He stuck the end of the pen in his mouth and muttered, “The fact that you have no regard for your own well-being helps too.”

“You’re so reckless, Nagito-chan!” Enoshima said, throwing the manga up in the air. Matsuda threw a scalpel at her that she easily dodged and growled out a ‘don’t _fucking_ do that, what the hell is wrong with you, goddamn devil woman’ before trudging over to pick it up. “If you aren’t careful, your bad brains will catch up with you and you won’t be any fun anymore.”

“I don’t remember asking for your opinion, but I appreciate your concern. It’s unnecessary, of course, but thank you for the effort you’ve expended on caring about someone like me.”

Enoshima put a hand on each knee and leaned forward, grinning widely. “I’m just looking out for you, you know! If I don’t, who will? I don’t want you getting hurt too badly, after all. I’ve got plans for you!”

Matsuda picked up the manga and stood back up, pushing it into Enoshima’s face before scribbling out a prescription. “Ignore her. Summer break starts in a couple days so just get this to Tsumiki as soon as you can and she’ll fill it for you,” he said, handing Komaeda the paper.

He squinted at it. “I can’t read this.”

“You don’t need to. She knows what it is.”

“That’s reassuring. You had me on antidepressants last time. What are these?”

“Antipsychotics. Should help with impulsivity and control.”

“Is this legal?”

“Do you _care_?” Matsuda shot back, to which Komaeda shrugged.

“About my personal safety, no, but it’d be a shame if our neurologist went to jail for something dirty.”

The small smile on his face toed the line between genuine and smug, and Matsuda’s lip curled up instinctively. He was like a less annoying Enoshima when he got like this, but only slightly less annoying. Granted, that was partly due to the fact that no human being alive could hope to reach the level of disgusting Enoshima was, but, well.

He shook his head. “Just shut up and get out already, we’re done here. See you after summer break.”

Komaeda wiggled his fingers in a goodbye wave and hopped off the examination table, not hesitating for the slightest of moments as Enoshima called out a sugary-sweet goodbye to him and slipping out the door. Matsuda dragged his hand down his face as Enoshima grabbed him by his belt loops and pulled him backwards toward her on the desk. She wrapped her legs around his waist from behind and he sighed.

“Otonashi.”

She rubbed her face against his back and slid one of her hands under the waistband of his pants up to the second knuckle. “Doctor.”

He grabbed her hand and yanked it out of his pants. “This isn’t covered by your insurance.”

* * *

Ikusaba did another three pushups as the red-haired girl sitting on her back uncrossed her legs and recrossed them with the opposite leg on top. “I don’t know why it never occurred to me before to use a high school,” she said, twirling the end of a lock of hair and grinning. “Rumors spread so fast among teenagers. You guys would crucify a friend to get ahead on the social hierarchy without even realizing such a thing doesn’t exist. It’s hilarious.”

“What’s the point,” Ikusaba mumbled to herself, holding herself up and blinking away the sweat collecting in her eyes as she stared straight ahead at the pavement. “If all you’re affecting is the school, what good is it doing?”

“Think of a pond. Actually, a puddle of sweat.” The girl stepped off Ikusaba’s back and tapped her foot on the ground once, materializing a pool of Ikusaba’s sweat between her hands. “When the surface starts out calm, nothing’s happening. And once the tension is broken…” A bead of sweat dropped off Ikusaba’s nose and landed in the middle of the pool, causing a wide ripple throughout the sweat. “It makes a ripple. Just because everything is centered here doesn’t mean it starts and ends here.”

“So it’s true,” Ikusaba said quietly, looking up and meeting cerise eyes. “It’s really happening.”

Nyarlathotep grinned.

* * *

The song blaring from the computer speakers faded out before another started, just as loud as the other and ten times more horrible, and Kirigiri turned a page in the case file before taking another bite of her sandwich and scribbling something in her notepad. Being cooped up in the hospital wing wasn’t the greatest way to be spending her time before summer break, but at least Tsumiki was quiet company. At least when she wasn’t fumbling around and dropping things while trying to take inventory of the medications and bandages, a role that normally fell on the day nurse had she not been sick and needed someone to cover for her. She was trying, at least, so Kirigiri couldn’t fault her too much.

“Uuuuuuuu…” A few things clattered to the floor. “Ah…! Oh, no…” Crash. “Oh dear… Nnnnn, n-not again…” She came stumbling into view from Kirigiri’s vantage point on her bed, arms laden with bottles and boxes before dumping them all on the small table covered in magazines near the entrance. A bottle of hydrogen peroxide rolled off the table and onto the floor, and Tsumiki grimaced as the cap popped off and the contents came spilling out. “Great,” she muttered to herself, pulling a few paper towels from the dispenser next to the nearest sink and trying to mop it up.

Kirigiri looked over the top of the file before lowering it slightly. “Do you need help, Tsumiki-san? You seem more anxious than usual.”

Tsumiki bolted upright, hands full of soggy paper towels, and turned on her heel. “Um, no, that’s okay! J-Just stay there or you might tear your stitches. I’ll be fine…” She looked at the paper towels in her hands and sighed, dropping them and flopping down face-first onto the bed next to Kirigiri. “Mmf mmfmfmff mmmmffff,” she mumbled into the sheets, muffled to the point of incoherency.

“I didn’t catch that.”

She lifted her head and said, “S-Sorry, I-I’m just— I sent Enoshima-san a t-text earlier asking if she m-maybe wanted to… hang out… with me… sometime… a-and she hasn’t texted back yet… I’m so nervous! What if she doesn’t want to? What if she thinks I’m disgusting? Oh… maybe that’s it… m-maybe she thinks my affection is disgusting…”

“I’m sure she’s just busy,” Kirigiri said after a long moment. Reassurance was pointless in her eyes; better to be blunt and get it over with. But Tsumiki was a sensitive type of person that could lose it at any moment, and with no one else to talk to but someone as emotionally distant as her, it could be hard for regular social interaction when she was on duty. Not to mention as the acting nurse, she was responsible for her should anything go wrong, and a nurse in a bad mindset was the possibility of complications, or even death. She quite liked her life, however ridiculous it had gotten in the past couple months.

Tsumiki opened her mouth to speak again when the door opened and Pekoyama walked in, face stony and lips pressed tightly together. “...P-Pekoyama-san…?” she mumbled, more to herself than the other two girls. When she saw the way their eyes met, she scrambled to her feet and bowed three, four, five times. “O-Oh, um! You… You want to be alone, I-I assume… I’ll just go, um, get some food. I haven’t eaten all day…” Another three bows and she excused herself from the room.

The air between them was still tense, Pekoyama’s busted arm and Kirigiri’s slowly-healing stab wound more than enough of a reminder of their encounter. Kirigiri had little reason to trust Pekoyama, her unconditional resolve to be of any help to her and her investigation of Ishimaru’s death little more than flimsy words between not-quite-enemies, nowhere-near-friends to Kirigiri.

Being adept at trusting others was not part of Kirigiri’s regular repertoire of social interaction; rather, she tended to keep others at a methodical distance until they proved themselves to be of _some_ use, any substantial use, really, then assuming they trusted her wholly and without complaint. Most did, to no one’s surprise— when one had the presence and determination of someone like Kirigiri, it was easily to fall into step with them and what they had to say or do— but there were some cases where they fell almost _too_ easily. Easily to the point of suspicion.

Peko Pekoyama was one case.

Question everything, leave no possible explanation unearthed. For all intents and purposes, she found it much easier to deal with the inevitable betrayal of a colleague than to sit on her thumbs and believe everything they said blindly. Pekoyama seemed to have good enough intentions (and a solid enough brush with Kirigiri’s proficiency with a gun) to avoid making the same mistake that nearly cost her an arm, but her unwavering loyalty to Kuzuryuu left a bad taste in Kirigiri’s mouth that she couldn’t attribute solely to whatever pain medication Tsumiki had her on.

In any case, their partnership, while unforeseen and remotely unstable, was likely to prove useful soon enough, and Kirigiri closed her laptop before using one arm to prop herself up more in the creaky infirmary bed. “Pekoyama-san,” she said, curt. “Have you talked to my father yet about the… incident?”

“Yes,” was the equally curt reply, and Pekoyama continued with, “as well as your current ‘progress’ in the investigation. The profession of certainty that both murders were committed by an outside agent and no one inside the school.”

“Did he believe it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No matter,” Kirigiri said with a noncommittal hand wave. “For the time being, we have more important things to focus on. As I promised, Kuzuryuu-kun will be left alone so long as you keep _your_ word. Just know that at any given time I have the opportunity and willingness to hand over any and all information I have regarding Satomi-san’s murder and her involvement in Kuzuryuu-san’s.”

“You really do come off as heartless as the reputation that precedes you suggests sometimes, Kirigiri-san,” came a disappointed yet amused voice from the doorway, and Kirigiri looked past Pekoyama to see Komaeda leaning against the doorframe. “A good trait for any investigator to have, but it hardly makes you seem approachable.”

 _And yet, you’re still here_ , sat on the tip of her tongue, but instead she replied with, “If seeming approachable was my intention, it would be clear. I’m sure you don’t need me to finish that line of reasoning verbally.”

Komaeda crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes, tilting his head downward toward his chest. “Regardless, it doesn’t take much empathy to be a little sensitive to Pekoyama-san’s moderately dire situation. She _is_ helping us when she has no real obligation to, after all.”

“It is my obligation,” Pekoyama said sharply, stepping back a pace and turning to put both Komaeda and Kirigiri in her peripheral vision. She closed her eyes, inhaled slowly, and turned to look at Komaeda. “My relationship with Kuzuryuu is none of your business and never will be, but my own personal obligation to him is to protect his life at any cost to me, whether it be life or limb. I gave my word I would assist in any way possible, as Kirigiri gave her word that so long as I am of use, Kuzuryuu will be under her protection and free of any investigation by herself or outside sources. My word is good, and I would like to believe hers is, as well.”

The air grew stale between the three of them and Komaeda snorted quietly before saying, “Nothing like a little personal injury to bring our three plucky protagonists together. Surely the next stop is an unbreakable bond of friendship.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Kirigiri said without missing a beat, leaning over to grab her cell phone off the small table next to the bed. “Do either of you have plans over summer break?”

“No,” Pekoyama replied.

“I was planning on visiting my parents,” Komaeda said, finally stepping into the infirmary and taking a seat in the chair opposite Kirigiri’s bed. “Family bonding time, considering it’s been a while since I’ve been home to visit. Though, if you had other plans, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me postponing for a bit.”

“In that case, I’d like it if the both of you could accompany me back home over break. There’s someone there I believe might be able to shed some light on this investigation. Travel accommodations have already been taken care of.”

Pekoyama raised an eyebrow. “I’m not protesting, but I fail to understand how someone who hasn’t even been in the area would know anything about Ishimaru’s murder. Strange circumstances notwithstanding.”

“That would be because neither Komaeda-kun nor myself have been entirely honest with you,” Kirigiri said bluntly, “and with good reason. Not only am I rightfully unwilling to trust you fully, but the situation as it stands is far too dangerous to be sending you into unprepared. However, in light of recent… _developments_ , I have decided it is far better to have you as an ally than an enemy. While I would much rather show you firsthand what we’re truly dealing with, it’s too risky.” She flipped open her phone and dialed a number. “We can discuss it on the way. A car will be here at ten a.m. sharp tomorrow, so please be ready and in the courtyard.”

She put the phone on speaker and set it down on top of her closed computer. It rang a few times before it was picked up, and after a brief pause, a deep voice said, “Sumaru Police Department, detective Tatsuya Suou speaking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter than usual, but hopefully shortening it up will make it easier to update! sorry it's been so long, wtf


End file.
